Object Details

Jack Cade Memorial

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General Information
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Author: Anthony McIntosh
Copyright for Photograph:

Creative Commons

Location

Street:B2096
Town:Cade Street
Parish:Heathfield & Waldron
Council:Wealden District Council
County:East Sussex
Postcode:TN21
Location on Google Map
Location note:Next to Cade Cottage, north side of road, on top of a bank with retaining wall.
In the AZ book:East Sussex
Page:77
Grid reference:J2
The A-Z books used are A-Z East Sussex and A-Z West Sussex (Editions 1A 2005). Geographers' A-Z Map Company Ltd. Sevenoaks.
OS Reference:TQ607209

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Makers


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General Information

Commissioned by: Frances Newbery
Construction period:between 1791 and 1819
Work is:Extant
Object listing:Grade II: of special interest warranting every effort to preserve them
Description:Square stone plinth set on a retaining wall at the roadside with carved inscription to the front.
Inscription:Inscription on weather worn early 19th century plaque:

NEAR THIS SPOT
WAS SLAIN THE NOTORIOUS REBEL
JACK CADE
BY ALEXANDER IDEN ESQ.
SHERIFF OF KENT A.D. 1450
HIS BODY WAS CARRIED TO LONDON
HIS HEAD FIXED UPON LONDON BRIDGE
This is the Success of all Rebels and
this Fortune chanceth ever to Traitors.

On a modern metal plaque affixed to the retaining wall below:

NEAR THIS SPOT WAS SLAIN THE NOTORIOUS
REBEL JACK CADE BY ALEXANDER IDEN,
SHERIFF OF KENT. A.D. 1450.
HIS BODY WAS CARRIED TO LONDON AND HIS
HEAD FIXED UPON LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS IS THE SUCCESS OF ALL REBELS,
AND THIS FORTUNE CHANCETH EVER TO
TRAITORS.

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Classification

Categories:Roadside / Wayside, Commemorative
Object type1:Shaft
Object type2:Marker
     Object subtype1:Commemorative stone
Subject type1:Non-figurative

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Object Parts

Part 1:Monument
     Material:Stone
     Height (cm):250
     Width (cm):150
     Depth (cm):150

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Object Condition

Overall condition:Fair
Risk assessment:No known risk
Condition 1 of type:Surface
     Condition 1: Corrosion, deterioration
     Condition 2: Bird guano
     Condition 3: Abrasions, cracks, splits
     Condition 4: Biological growth
     More details:General weather wearing and surface corrosion. Inscription quite heavily eroded but just about legible.
Date of on-site inspection:13/08/2007

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History

History:'Jack Cade gave his name to the rebellion of 1450, leading an army of insurgents to London, seizing the Tower of London and beheading the Treasurer, Lord Saye.'
('Curiosities of East Sussex')

'John (or Jack) Cade was probably born between 1420 and 1430, since he is described as young when he played so prominent a part in one of the greatest insurrections that England has witnessed… To carry out a political design on the part of the Yorkists, under the pretext that the government of Henry the sixth was oppressive to the common people, Cade assumed the name of Mortimer, claiming descent from the Earl of March (which would make him a kinsman of the Duke of York), and put himself at the head of the populace of Kent in opposition to royal authority. Naturally ambitious and daring, he seems nevertheless to have been to a very great extent the tool of the Yorkist party; to emply the quaint expression of Holinshed, ''this captain was not only suborned by teachers but also enforced by privy school-masters''. How he encamped on Blackheath with his Kentish army - how he defeated the Royal forces at Sevenoaks - how he beheaded the Lord Say and Sele in Cheapside, and proclaimed himself master of London - and how he was finally routed by the King's forces and put to death by Alexander Iden - are things so well known that further reference to them is unnecessary, except as to the locality of his death. When Cade found that his cause was desperate, and that a reward of one thousand marks had been offered for his apprehension, he galloped off in the direction of the coast, in the hope of escaping to the continent. He was hotly pursued by Alexander Iden, a gentleman of Sussex extraction, but resident in Westwell in Kent, who at length slew him and obtained the reward. The chronicles do not agree as to the place where this event occurred; some say in Kent, at a village near Hothfield, apparently on the strength of Cade's captaincy of the Kentish men and his death at the hands of the Kentish squire; and Shakespeare, on their authority, lays the death scene in a garden in Kent. Others with more probability declare that it took place in Sussex…
That Jack Cade should have sought refuge from his pursuers among the woods and secluded nooks of his native Weald it is reasonable to suppose, and the traditions of the district fully support such an opinion. On the latter authority he is said to have concealed himself at the farm-house of Newick, in the northern part of the parish of Heathfield, then a small moated mansion, which was afterwards called, in an allusion to the event, ''Cade's Castle''…the road leading from Heathfield Common to that house was called ''Iden's Gate'', or way, probably indicating the route taken by the Kentish squire when in search of the rebel, though the actual place of his death is fixed in another part of the parish, at 'Cade' Street. He was playing at bowls - so goes the tradition - in the garden of an ale-house there, when he was pierced with an arrow from Mr. Iden's well-strung bow. On the opposite side of the road the late Mr. Francis Newbery, the eminent druggist of St. Paul's Churchyard, then owner of Heathfield Park, erected a monumental stone to commemorate the event…'
(Worthies of Sussex)

CADE
By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I
heard! Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out
the burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou
sleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on my knees thou
mayst be turned to hobnails.

Here they fight. CADE falls

O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain me:
let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me
but the ten meals I have lost, and I'll defy them
all. Wither, garden; and be henceforth a
burying-place to all that do dwell in this house,
because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.

IDEN
Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
Sword, I will hollow thee for this thy deed,
And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead:
Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point;
But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,
To emblaze the honour that thy master got.

CADE
Iden, farewell, and be proud of thy victory. Tell
Kent from me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort
all the world to be cowards; for I, that never
feared any, am vanquished by famine, not by valour.

Dies

IDEN
How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.
Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee;
And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,
So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.
Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels
Unto a dunghill which shall be thy grave,
And there cut off thy most ungracious head;
Which I will bear in triumph to the king,
Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.

Exit

(William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part II, Act IV, scene X. Kent. IDEN's garden.)

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References

Source 1 :
     Title:'Curiosities of East Sussex: A County Guide to the Unusual'
     Type:Book
     Author:Arscott, David.
     Page:40
     Publisher:S.B. Publications. Market Drayton.

Source 2 :
     Title:'The Worthies of Sussex'
     Type:Book
     Author:Lower, Mark Anthony.
     Page:55-57
     Publisher:Printed for subscribers only by G.P. Bacon, Lewes.


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Photographs





Author: Anthony McIntosh
Copyright: Creative Commons




Author: Anthony McIntosh
Copyright: Creative Commons




Author: Anthony McIntosh
Copyright: Creative Commons




Author: Anthony McIntosh
Copyright: Creative Commons

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