POLITICAL HISTORY 



give us much information upon the matter/ The reigns of the three 

 Henries contain little of importance for the political history of this 

 county, though it would be easy to compile a formidable list of Sussex 

 men who served their King in the French wars. It is, however, enough 

 for our purpose to note that at the great victory of Agincourt the Earl 

 of Arundel numbered amongst his esquires members of such prominent 

 Sussex families as Lewkenore, Halsham, Waleys, Bartelot, Michelgrove, 

 Hussey, Covert, Culpepper, and William Wolf of Ashington, who took 

 prisoner the Sire de Bursegand, seneschal of France ; other Sussex men 

 served under Sir Thomas West, Sir Roger Fiennes and Lord Camoys ; 

 but Lord Poynings, Sir John Dalingrugge and Sir John Pelham, who 

 all served in other campaigns, were not present on this occasion/ Against 

 this picture of honourable, or even brilliant, service rendered by Sussex 

 soldiers must be set the terrible record of rapes, robberies and murders 

 done by the troops quartered in the county or passing through it on 

 their way to embark for France/ 



The great event of the fifteenth century so far as Sussex is concerned 

 was the rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450. The pitiable state of the 

 county, burdened with taxation, overrun with a brutal soldiery and 

 exposed to constant raids — the men of Tarring dared not even go to 

 neighbouring markets lest the French should take advantage of their 

 absence to burn the village,* as they had burnt Rye and Winchelsea in 

 1448, — combined with the socialistic, or communistic, teaching of 

 the Lollards, had produced a state of ferment within the county 

 which only required the presence of a leader to burst into active rebel- 

 lion. Such a leader was found in Jack Cade, who had been a servant 

 of Thomas Dacre of Heathfield, and who, assuming the name of 

 Mortimer, at the end of May began an abortive insurrection in Kent, 

 which he successfully revived in July. That he had been for some 

 time organizing action is clear, for on 17 April one William Dalby of 

 Brookhampton and London came with others by his orders into the 

 forest of Worth and there harangued the populace in an extraordinary 

 rigmarole about the coming of ' a marvellous and terrible man of high 

 birth and of the ancient royal race, bearing on his arms ^ certain wild 

 beasts, namely, a red lion and a white Hon ' with a force of two hundred 

 thousand armed men, and that this ' marvellous man ' would pursue the 

 ' fox and leopard,' meaning King Henry, until he should obtain the 

 mastery and be crowned king." Unlike the Peasants' Rising of 1381, 

 this insurrection was aimed against the King, and while loyalty to 

 Richard had been the mark of the former, this was marked by enmity 



» Horsfield, Hist, of Suss. i. 315. a Suss. Arch. Coll. xv. 123-7. 



3 Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iv. 251, 351. * Chart. R. 22 Hen. VI. 



6 ' Gerens in brachiis suis.' A fine example of dog-Latin. This reference to Cade's arms is curious, 

 as he would naturally have assumed the arms as well as the name of Mortimer. 



<^ Anct. Indictments, 122. The account of this speech is much confused, the deponents having evi- 

 dently been puzzled by the rather high-flown language. Houndslow Heath is named, apparently as 

 the place where the battle between the ' marvellous man ' and the ' false and traitor king was to take 

 place. 



I 513 65 



