ARTHUR ORTON--WHO CLAIMED TO BE SIR ROGER
CHARLES DOUGHTY TICHBORNE, BART.,






JACK CADE--THE PRETENDED MORTIMER.


Henry VI. was one of the most unpopular of our English monarchs.
During his reign the nobles were awed by his austerity towards some
members of their own high estate, and divided between the claims of
Lancaster and York; and the peasantry, who cared little for the claims
of the rival Roses, were maddened by the extortions and indignities to
which they were subjected. The feebleness and corruption of the
Government, and the disasters in France, combined with the murder of
the Duke of Suffolk, added to the general discontent; and the result
was, that in the year 1450 the country was ripe for revolution. In
June of that year, and immediately after the death of Suffolk, a body
of 20,000 of the men of Kent; assembled on Blackheath, under the
leadership of a reputed Irishman, calling himself John Cade, but who
is said in reality to have been an English physician named Aylmere.
This person, whatever his real cognomen, assumed the name of Mortimer
(with manifest allusion to the claims of the House of Mortimer to the
succession), and forwarded two papers to the king, entitled "The
Complaint of the Commons of Kent," and "The Requests of the Captain of
the Great Assembly in Kent." Henry replied by despatching a small
force against the rioters. Cade unhesitatingly gave battle to the