Character Analysis
When we first hear of a commoner named Jack Cade, it's from York, who wants to put some feelers out to see if his days of dreaming of the crown are numbered. So he up and hires Jack Cade to get in good with the common folk and stir up trouble in London. He'll pretend to be John Mortimer, who is now dead but totally has a claim to the throne. Once Cade forms an army of commoners, York will return from Ireland and take control of it.
Block-Cade
Sounds like a plan. The only problem is that Cade's crew already knows that he's John Cade—and not Mortimer. He'll never be royal, but that sure doesn't stop him from trying.
Now, nobody seems to actually buy his whole "I'm Mortimer" thing, but it doesn't seem to matter: the rebellion quickly becomes about other important issues like... literacy and grammar. Cade totally accuses Lord Saye of "talk[ing] of a noun and a verb and such abominable / words as no Christian ear can endure to hear" (4.7.39-40). And then he goes on to order Say's execution. Why? Because Saye put illiterate men in prison and taught certain men how to read.
(Yes, we're also amused that the dude's name is Saye.)
Also on Cade's list of must-haves for a kingdom are:
- No money
- No social classes
- No designer clothes
- No reading and writing
- No letters
- No grammar schools
- No limits on food and drink
- No limits on women
Umm... what's all this about? Well, part of Cade's shtick is talking about how the lower classes have no say in anything. Newsflash: there was no voting or representation in Shakespeare's day. Cade and his crew aren't just against Henry; they're against the very notion of the monarchy. Instead, they want a commonwealth, or a republic, where every guy gets a say.
Cade describes what it's like being lower class to his crowd: "You are all / recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery / to the nobility. Let them break your backs with / burdens, take your houses over your heads, ravish / your wives and daughters before your faces" (4.8.27-31). He wants the class system to go bonkers so guys like him can have some power, too.
That's the whole point of Cade's attack on literacy and grammar. It's not that he hates education; he hates that it's only the upper classes who can read and write, and that has pretty much cemented their power over the lower classes. Think of it this way: if you can read and write, and that other person over there can't, guess who that person has to come to for information and things like legal help?
Knowledge is power, and the lower classes in this play have neither.
High Hopes
The only problem is that the rebels are easily swayed. They're gaining steam after they take London Bridge and the Tower, but a quickie speech from Buckingham and Clifford stops them cold in their tracks.
Some people think this might have been Shakespeare's way of shutting it all down—he did have a queen on the throne, after all. A play celebrating no monarch and giving power to lower-class citizens wouldn't have made him popular or safe back in his day. Others think that this scene just shows how fickle people—specifically crowds of people—can be in this play.
Whatever Shakespeare's reasons, Cade is devastated: he thought the people were actually fighting alongside him, but it turns out that they were just following the loudest voice. Without his supporters, Cade flees and is killed by Iden. Could Cade's death be Shakespeare's way of telling us what happens to people who challenge the crown? You decide.
Either way, York isn't all that upset about the whole thing. Cade was just a pawn for him—but at least he was pretty honest about it, we guess. There's a lot of collateral damage in these battles between the nobles; it just goes to show us that all this bloodshed is really about a handful of individuals' desire for power.
Timeline