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Summary
Jack Cade fights with reinforcements from the Tower, killing the leaders. The Butcher and Weaver ask Cade to make new laws for England. Cade declares all written records should be burned, and his words will constitute the new law.
A messenger announces that Saye has been captured, and one of the rebels brings him in. Cade makes a long speech to Saye, affecting courtly speech but speaking in prose. He accuses Saye of giving up Normandy to the French and says he must sweep the court clean of such filth. He charges Saye with corrupting the youth through grammar schools, which have kept printing presses and a paper mill in business. Cade also condemns Saye for imprisoning illiterate men for their ignorance. Saye replies, speaking of the good traditions of people from Kent, the home of Cade’s army. He says he had nothing to do with the loss of Normandy, and he has done nothing but try to maintain the king, the realm, and the people. He also defends his learning, saying that ignorance is the curse of God and knowledge the wing to heaven. In an aside, Cade confesses that he pities Saye, but then he turns to his followers and orders the man—as well as his son-in-law—beheaded.
A Sergeant enters and accuses the Butcher of having raped his wife. Cade declares that all women in his realm shall be available to all men, and he orders the Butcher to cut out the Sergeant’s tongue and kill him. Some of Cade’s men enter with the heads of Saye and his son-in-law on pikes, and Cade orders them to be paraded around all the street corners.
Buckingham and Clifford enter as ambassadors from the king, offering pardons to those commoners who put down their weapons and go home. Clifford makes a speech in favor of the king, invoking King Henry V. The commoners all side with the king. Then, Cade makes a speech, warning the commoners against relinquishing their freshly won freedom. They all change their mind and shout that they will follow Cade. Clifford speaks again, saying that this civil brawl will weaken the state and lead the French to attack England. Again, the rabble turns back to the king. Cade thinks to himself that the multitude is as easily led one way or the other as a feather in the wind. Cursing his former army, he runs away, and Buckingham sends soldiers after him.
Meanwhile, Henry waits in a castle with Margaret and Somerset. The king is wallowing in discontent when Buckingham and Clifford enter. They announce that Cade has fled and that his former army is waiting below to be forgiven. Henry addresses the masses, praising them for their loyalty and absolving them of their sins. A messenger then enters with the news that York is on his way from Ireland, marching toward them with a powerful army. York claims his only desire is to fight with Somerset, whom he deems a traitor. Henry reels, noting that his kingdom is buffeted like a ship in a storm between assaults from Cade and then York. He sends Buckingham to talk to York and sends Somerset to the Tower until he can sort things out with York. Somerset willingly goes to prison, pledging his loyalty to the Crown.
Five days later, Cade is hiding in Alexander Iden’s garden in Kent. He hasn’t eaten since he fled from London, and he is very weak. He jumps the fence to Iden’s vegetable patch and starts eating his herbs. Iden then enters with his men, speaking of the little garden left to him by his father, where he enjoys spending time far away from the turmoil of the court. Iden sees Cade, who in turn threatens to kill Iden. Iden has no desire to fight with a weakened, hungry man. Yet Cade draws his sword on him, they fight, and Iden kills Cade. As he dies, Cade reveals his identity. Iden is shocked that this enemy of the state has shown up in his garden, and he stabs him again. He then tells his men to leave the body in a dunghill. Meanwhile, he will take Cade’s head to the king.
Analysis
As Cade and his army of commoners threaten to take over London, their activity grows ever more indiscriminately violent. As “king,” Cade’s rule is characterized by extreme brutality, from the hanging of the clerk to the beheading of Saye and his son-in-law. He even orders the death of a man whose wife has been brutally “ravished” (4.7.129) by Dick the Butcher, whose name becomes the source of cruelly suggestive jokes at the woman’s expense. The climax of grotesquerie comes when the pike-mounted heads of Saye and his son-in-law are made to kiss each other before being paraded through the streets. The brutal violence of Cade’s army seems to confirm contemporary suspicions about the dangers of popular rule. Yet Cade’s “reign” is also, on some level, clearly parodic. He is a mischief-maker whose main goal is to turn the kingdom topsy-turvy, even if only temporarily—hence his absurd focus on rooting out anyone who can read and write. Cade himself doesn’t seem to believe anything he’s saying, as suggested when he makes an aside to express his pity for Saye, whom he summarily orders to death. He is simply executing York’s vision.
As quickly becomes clear, however, not even Cade can contain the chaotic power of the army of commoners he has stirred up. His troops seem to be motivated by the pleasures of mob rule more than any ideology of freedom. Hence, they are quick to join in the general mayhem, committing acts of violence they likely wouldn’t dream of doing in ordinary circumstances. Shakespeare’s treatment of this crowd of commoners ultimately seems quite critical. Not only are they easily swayed by Cade, but they are just as easily convinced to give up their arms and surrender to the king. In exasperation, Cade asks himself, “Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?” (4.7.209–210). Whereas earlier in the play the commoners seemed to have righteousness on their side in their condemnation of Suffolk for Gloucester’s death, by this point they’ve proven themselves gullible, shallow, and capable of indiscriminate cruelty.
Against the background of the mounting discontent and violence subsuming England, Alexander Iden is a curious figure. A landowning gentleman who has built a wall around his garden and prefers it to courtly life, this man strolls his grounds and contemplates how content he is in his life. He meditates on how he “seek[eth] not to wax great by others’ waning, / Or gather wealth I care not with what envy; / Sufficeth that I have maintains my state” (4.9.20–22). Unlike the nobility of Henry’s court, and unlike the newly malcontent commonfolk, this man has learned to be grateful for what he has. He also shows a charitable spirit when he resists Cade’s attempts to escalate what is otherwise a harmless situation. His presence in the play, however brief, evokes the virtues of rural life in contrast to the values of the corrupt court or the rampaging commoners. In this sense, his garden repeats a common trope of English as an Edenic garden. Iden’s appearance also anticipates the emerging bourgeois property holder, soon to become the backbone of the nation. And his loyalties are clear: when he finds he has killed Cade, he rushes to take the head to the king.
