'Stoop to the block, than these knees bow to any, 'More can I bear, than you dare execute. 6 Cap. Hale him away, and let him talk no more. Suff. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,' That this my death may never be forgot! 'Great men oft die by vile bezonians. 'A Roman sworder and banditto slave, 3 'Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates. [Exit SUFF., with WHIT. and others Cap. And as for these whose ransom we have set, It is our pleasure, one of them depart. Therefore come you with us, and let him go. [Exeunt all but the first Gentleman. Re-enter WHITMORE, with SUFFOLK's body. Whit. There let his head and lifeless body lie,* Until the queen his mistress bury it. 1 Gent. O barbarous and bloody spectacle! • His body will I bear unto the king: 'If he revenge it not, yet will his friends; So will the queen, that living held him dear. [Exit. [Exit, with the body. 1 According to the Letter in the Paston Collection, already cited, the cutting off of Suffolk's head was very barbarously performed. "One of the lewdest of the ship bade him lay down his head, and he should be fairly ferd [dealt] with, and dye on a sword; and took a rusty sword and smote off his head within half a dozen strokes." 2 A bezonian is a mean, low person. 3 Pompey was killed by Achillas and Septimius at the moment that the Egyptian fishing-boat, in which they were, reached the coast, his head being thrown into the sea-a circumstance sufficiently resembling Suffolk's death to bring it to the Poet's memory; though his mention of it is not quite accurate. In the old play Pompey is not named. 66 4 They laid his body on the sands of Dover, and some say that his head was set on a pole by it."-Paston's Letters, vol. i. p. 41. SCENE II. Blackheath. Enter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND. 'Geo. Come, and get thee a sword, though made ' of a lath; they have been up these two days. John. They have the more need to sleep now 'then. • Geo. I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set 'a new nap upon it. John. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say, it was never merry world in England, since gentlemen came up. *Geo. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded *in handicrafts-men. 'John. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons. *Geo. Nay, more, the king's council are no good * workmen. * John. True; and yet it is said,-Labor in thy *vocation; which is as much to say, as,-Let the magistrates be laboring men; and therefore should *we be magistrates. * * * *Geo. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better of a brave mind, than a hard hand. sign *John. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of Wingham; *Geo. He shall have the skins of our enemies, to make dog's leather of. John. And Dick the butcher, *Geo. Then is sin struck down like an ox, and * iniquity's throat cut like a calf. *John. And Smith the weaver, *Geo. Argo, their thread of life is spun. *John. Come, come, let's fall in with them. Drum. Enter CADE, DICK the Butcher, SMITH the Weaver, and others in great number. Cade. We John Cade, so termed of our supposed 'father, 6 Dick. Or, rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.1 [Aside. • Cade. for our enemies shall fall before us, in spired with the spirit of putting down kings and ' princes.-Command silence. Dick. Silence! Cade. My father was a Mortimer.— Dick. He was an honest man, and a good brick layer. Cade. My mother a Plantagenet, [Aside. [Aside. 'Dick. I knew her well; she was a midwife. • Cade. My wife descended of the Lacies,Dick. She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter, and sold many laces. [Aside. Smith. But, now of late, not able to travel with ' her furred pack, she washes bucks here at home. [Aside. Cade. Therefore am I of an honorable house. Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honorable; and there was he born, under a hedge; for his father had never a house, but the cage. * Cade. Valiant I am. 2 [Aside. [Aside. *Smith. 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant. Cade. I am able to endure much. 1 Tom Nashe speaks of having weighed one of Gabriel Harvey's books against a cade of herrings, and ludicrously says, "That the rebel Jack Cade was the first that devised to put red herrings in cades, and from him they have their name."-Lenten Stuffe, 1599-Cade, however, is derived from cadus (Lat.), a cask. We may add, from the accounts of the Celeress of the Abbey of Barking, in the Monasticon Anglicanum, "a barrel of herryng shold contain a thousand herryngs, and a cade of herryng six hundred, six score to the hundred." Cade, with more learning than should naturally fall to his character, alludes to his name from cado, to fall. 2 "Little places of prison, set commonly in the market-place for harlots and vagabonds, we call cages."-Baret. Dick. No question of that; for I have seen him whipped three market days together. Cade. I fear neither sword nor fire. [Aside. Smith. He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of proof. [Aside. Dick. But, methinks, he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i' the hand for stealing of sheep. [Aside. Cade. Be brave then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony, to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And, when I am king (as king I will be) All. God save your majesty! Cade. I thank you, good people :-there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord. 'Dick. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings; but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now; who's there? Enter some, bringing in the Clerk of Chatham. Smith. The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read, and cast accompt. Cade. O monstrous! 1 These drinking-vessels of our ancestors were of wood. Nash, in his Pierce Pennilesse, 1595, says, "I believe hoopes in quart pots were invented to that end, that every man should take his hoope, and no more." 2 This speech was transposed by Shakspeare from a subsequent scene in the old play. Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies. Smith. H'as a book in his pocket, with red letters in't. Cade. Nay, then he is a conjurer. Dick. Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand. Cade. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, ' on mine honor; unless I find him guilty, he shall 'not die. Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee. • What is thy name? Clerk. Emmanuel. Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters.1 -Twill go hard with you. Cade. Let me alone.-Dost thou use to write 'thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an 'honest, plain-dealing man? Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up, that I can write my name. All. He hath confessed: away with him; he's ' a villain, and a traitor. • Cade. Away with him, I say; hang him with his and inkhorn about his neck. pen [Exeunt some, with the Clerk. Enter MICHAEL. 'Mich. Where's our general? Cade. Here I am, thou particular fellow. 'Mich. Fly, fly, fly! sir Humphrey Stafford and ' his brother are hard by, with the king's forces. Cade. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall be encountered with a man as good as him'self. He is but a knight, is 'a? • Mich. No. • Cade. To equal him, I will make myself a knight 1 That is, on the top of letters missive and such like public acts. See Mabillon's Diplomata. |