Late medieval England witnessed two large scale peasant uprisings that threatened to topple the ruling regime. The first, and perhaps the most famous, was the eponymous Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. The second, lesser known but equally serious, was the Jack Cade rebellion of 1450.
There had been revolts and rebellions against royal authority before. The Baronial Wars that plagued the reigns of King John and his son Henry III for example. But these revolts had been led by members of the nobility seeking to curb the powers of the king. The Peasants’ Revolt and Cade uprising were different; they had been led by commoners.
But what prompted these late medieval popular uprisings? What kind of people had led and organised them and what were they demanding?
The Peasants’ Revolt
The first of these uprisings began in the summer of 1381. A royal official, John Bampton, attempted to collect unpaid poll tax in the county of Essex in May 1381. It was the last straw as far as many of the locals were concerned and served as the spark that would ignite the Peasants Revolt. What began as a series of impromptu protests became increasingly widespread, violent and angry. Courts were stormed and records burnt. Jails were attacked and prisoners set free.
As the situation escalated the rebels burnt the Savoy Palace (residence of the king’s uncle, John of Gaunt) and as well as several other London buildings. They even managed to storm the Tower of London, seizing and summarily executing several royal officials. The damage to property was considerable and in the weeks of fighting, rioting and unrest that followed as many as 1,500 people lost their lives.
Despite the death of the revolt’s iconic leader, Wat Tyler, in mid-June, it took several more months to eventually bring the situation fully under control. The restoration of order only came after a brutal repression.
The Jack Cade Rebellion
The Jack Cade Rebellion, which takes its name from its leader, occurred nearly 70 years later in 1450. The rebellion was prompted by unrest concerning high levels of taxation, corrupt royal officials and a series of disastrous defeats in the Hundred Years’ War.
As with the earlier Peasants’ Revolt, the situation rapidly spiralled out of control as a large mob of rebels marched on London. Once again rebels managed to enter the capital and resorted to rioting and plundering. Once again, rebels targeted unpopular royal officials and executed several of them, sometimes after an impromptu vigilante trial.
However, like the Peasant’s Revolt before it, Jack Cade’s rebellion eventually ran out of steam. As with the Peasants’ Revolt, the Cade rebels were subject to ruthless reprisals from a vengeful establishment.
Leadership
The most prominent leader of the Peasants’ Revolt is surely Wat Tyler. Some have suggested he was most likely a craftsman by trade, working as a tiler (as his name implies). Some have argued that he may well have had some military experience. Other leaders included John Ball (a radical cleric), Thomas Baker (a minor Essex landowner), John Wrawe (a former chaplain), William Grindecobbe (a major landowner from St. Albans), and Johanna Ferrour (the wife of a blacksmith who owned property in Rochester in Kent).
Like Tyler, Jack Cade is also something of an unknown quantity. Most historians agree that he came from the lower sections of English society but anything beyond that is speculation. Cade sometimes used the name Jack Mortimer, implying a connection with the noble Mortimer family (although he almost certainly used this name as a pseudonym rather than as any implied claim to noble blood).
An analysis of Cade rebels who received pardons reveals they came from all walks of life (except for the nobility). The rebels included many craftsmen, farmers and common labours. However, their ranks also included many members of the gentry, knights, constables, priests and even an Abbot. The rank and file of people who joined the Peasants’ Revolt were equally mixed.
Demands
Both the Peasants’ Revolt and Cade rebellion held grievances based around the financial plight of the lower classes. In the case of the former, the hated Poll Tax was the primary focal point for protest. High levels of taxation and levies raised to help finance the wars with France also partly prompted the Cade rebellion.
The two revolts differed in so far as the Peasants Revolt sought reforms, in terms of greater freedoms of labour and an end to the vestiges of serfdom. The Cade rebellion, by contrast, was less radical but had a stronger political dimension. Many of the Cade rebel demands sought the removal of the incumbent court faction and the elevation of the Duke of York as the king’s principal advisor.
Both revolts sought the removal of alleged corrupt officials from office and the restoration of ‘justice’. Rather than directly blaming the king himself for their grievances, both rebellions preferred to blame corrupt officials and advisors.
Both uprisings avoided direct criticism of the king. The problem, the rebels argued, was that corrupt and greedy officials manipulated the system. Both appealed to the higher authority of the king for justice. Neither, therefore, went so far as to demand the dismantling of the fundamental systems of government.
Scapegoats and targets
Both rebellions directed a significant degree of criticism against the supposed ‘evil and corrupt’ councillors whom they perceived had led the king astray.
In the case of the Peasants’ Revolt the primary target was John of Gaunt, the uncle of the then 14-year-old king. Gaunt, in 1381, was the king’s most influential advisor and primary architect of policy at the time. It was Gaunt who had been a key figure in introducing the Poll Tax. Gaunt’s residence in London became a primary target for pillage and arson during the revolt (although Gaunt himself had not been present in the capital at the time).
In a similar way the Cade rebellion blamed the Duke of Suffolk and his associates. Suffolk had been the king’s principal minister during the late 1440s. The Cade revolt echoed the populist denunciation of Suffolk as a traitor, responsible for most of the country’s ills. Suffolk himself was dead by this time but, of course, the rebels were keen to target Suffolk’s political associates as being complicit in his crimes.
Both revolts accused various establishment figures of corruption and even treason, demanding that they face justice. Indeed, both revolts, when they managed to lay hands on senior government figures, held mock vigilante trials and summary executions.
Robin Hood
The late medieval period in which these revolts occurred happened to coincide with the period in which tales of Robin Hood reached the height of their medieval popularity.
Fifteenth century clerical writers denounced Robin Hood as a vagabond but nevertheless conceded that ballads of his escapades were popular with the common folk.
The Robin Hood ballads and plays that survive from the fifteenth century (the earliest surviving examples of such tales) portray Robin as a loveable rogue, a rustic member of the common yeoman class. Robin’s primary targets are corrupt officials such as sheriffs and justices, or wealthy abbots. The stories present such people as exploiting the poor and abusing their power to get their own way.
However, Robin does not seek to overthrow the system, or even reform it for that matter. Instead, he often seeks the king’s justice. Only the king can ultimately pardon Robin and his companions and set corruption to rights. Only then can the corrupt officials and greedy abbots meet their due comeuppance.
This attitude, fictional though these tales may well have been, reflects the same thinking we see at work in the Peasants Revolt and Cade rebellion. Both held a deep conviction that the king could restore justice and that it was his corrupt officials who were really responsible for the peoples’ troubles.
Social reform
The hated Poll Tax sparked the Peasants’ Revolt, but it also had a reforming agenda which is less apparent in the later Cade revolt.
The late fourteenth century had seen significant social changes greatly accelerated by the Black Death of 1348/9. The pandemic wiped out a substantial proportion of the total population, leading to a major labour shortage in its aftermath.
This labour shortage rapidly accelerated the decline in the old practices of serfdom. Those still classed as serfs were theoretically barred from leaving their lord’s service and seeking better paid work elsewhere. However, many chose to ignore such restrictions and left their lord’s lands in search of a better life. The old system was breaking down. In the aftermath of the Black Death the establishment attempted to stem the tide of change with legislation. The government of Richard II made attempts to fix prices and limit incomes. They even introduced legistration to restrict what people could wear so that they did not dress above their station.
Such attempts to set the clock back and keep the lower classes in their place were seen as increasingly oppressive and unfair. For many who joined the Peasants’ Revolt, an end to these restrictions and the last vestiges of the shackles of serfdom was a key goal.
Political agendas
Both the Peasants’ Revolt and the Cade rebellion attacked the political establishment (but not the king). The inner circle of key political advisors and councillors were the main targets of the rebels’ anger. In 1381 that meant John of Gaunt, and those officials most closely associated with him, whereas in 1450 it meant the court faction, especially those who’d been close allies of Suffolk.
In both cases it is likely that these rebel aims met with some sympathy amongst those nobles who’d been political enemies of Gaunt and Suffolk. However, in neither case did the nobility openly side with the commons.
In the case of the Cade rebellion, the demands of the rebels display a strong proto-Yorkist political stance. Whether Richard of York himself secretly encouraged it cannot be known with any certainty. However, many of the rebels were clearly inspired by a Yorkist agenda which, if it did not originate with Richard himself, originated with his sympathisers.
A key demand of the Cade rebels was the removal of Suffolk’s old associates from government and the return of Richard of York to serve as the king’s principal advisor. This, they believed, would help to put an end to corruption and perhaps restore England’s fortunes following the disastrous defeats in France of 1449 and early 1450.
The Hundred Years’ War
A key factor in both revolts had been the Hundred Years’ War. In both cases the ongoing demands of the war had required the government to raise taxes to an unpopular level. Were it not for the war there would have been no Poll Tax in 1381. Were it not for the war, taxation and royal debts would have been significantly lower in the period leading up to the Cade rebellion.
The disastrous defeat of the English in Normandy in 1449/50 had been a major contributing factor in inciting the Cade rebellion. Many people in England had, until this time, been clinging to the past glories of Agincourt and Henry V. But in 1449 the French had overrun English defences in Normandy with shocking rapidity. Many were at a loss to explain how such a thing could have happened. England had been humiliated.
A side effect of England’s continental losses had been that people who’d made a living from trade with Normandy, not to mention many soldiers, lost their livelihoods. The impact was especially significant in south east England, where the rebellion erupted.
The simple truth is that if England had not embroiled itself in the Hundred Years’ War, it is likely that both the Peasants’ Revolt and the Cade rebellion could have been avoided.
Repression
Ultimately both the Peasants’ Revolt and the Cade rebellion failed. Both Richard II and Henry VI’s regimes managed to placate and diffuse the situation by appearing to make concessions and even offering generous promises of amnesty. These were promises that neither regime kept.
Once the immediate crisis had passed, ruthless reprisals quickly followed. Richard II’s regime instituted a ‘bloody assize’. It was overseen by Richard himself and his hated Chief Justice, Sir Robert Tresilian. In all, 31 men were eventually rounded up and executed. Promises made by the young King Richard (still just 14 at the time) were later repudiated by Richard personally. As he infamously told a rebel delegation in Essex:
“Rustics you were and rustics you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher.”
Richard II
The Cade rebels faced a no less savage end. The king appointed Sir Humphrey Stafford to root out and punish the rebels in those areas with the strongest rebel sympathies. When the regime’s investigators arrived in Canterbury, eight rebels were quickly identified and executed. More executions followed in what became known as the ‘harvest of heads’.
These revolts had been led by a mob of commoners who had the temerity to make demands on their betters. This made them exceptional cases deemed by the establishment to require an especially savage response.
Aftermath
Both rebellions ultimately failed, and their leaders met bloody ends. However, both had a lasting impact. Both made the establishment wary of raising taxes in the future, in case it might incite subsequent unrest.
The Peasants’ Revolt may have failed but it served to stall attempts by the establishment to cling on to the last remnants of serfdom.
The Cade revolt may have failed but the unrest it caused, and the demands its leaders made, served to bolster support for a nascent Yorkist cause. In its own way, it contributed to the disruption that would eventually erupt in the Wars of the Roses.
Yet, despite the impact that both rebellions had on late medieval society, neither sought to overthrow the king or dismantle the establishment structures. The English commons, at this time, may have been willing to protest, riot and rebel but always stopped short of demanding radical changes to the way in which they were governed.
The English commons, like their idol Robin Hood, may have been rebels but they weren’t revolutionaries.
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If you are interested in life in medieval England, you might be interested in some of my other articles…
Medieval Summer Folk Traditions
Parliament and the Birth of Democracy
References and further reading
Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Dan Jones, Harper Press, 2009The Jack Cade Rebellion of 1450: A Sourcebook, Lexington Books, 2019
Images
Peasants Revolt by Alfred Garth Jones, 1900 (via Wiki Commons)
John Ball encouraging Wat Tyler rebels, image taken from the Froissart Chronicles, c.1470 (via Wiki Commons)
Murder of the Duke of Suffolk, by James WE Doyle, 1864 (via Wiki Commons)
Battle of Formigny illumination, taken from La Cronicque du temps de tres chrestien roy Charles, septisme de ce nom, roy de France, 1470-1480 (via Wiki Commons)