I have re-published an older post from the Copy Book, Jack Cade’s Revolt, which is an account of a rebellion against King Herny VI led by Irishman John Cade in the summer of 1450. Originally, this was a short summary piece I wrote myself; now it is a three-part tale from the pen of Charles Dickens, in his Child’s History of England.
Many years before Jack Cade, in 1381, a man called Wat Tyler had led just such a protest against the young King Richard II. Dickens has a good deal of sympathy for Tyler, but not for Cade, an adventurer whose susceptibility to temptation helped the Government to seize the advantage.