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anyway, to frighten the county from joining the
Duke of York on the insurrection in 1452.1
(iv) K.B.9, file 48. The indictments in this
file were made before justices sitting at Dartford from 12 to 16
May 1452 under a commission of 11 May.2 Some are
presentments for felony and no. 5 indicts two men for their part
in Cade’s Rebellion, but undoubtedly the purpose of the
commission was to repress a rising which took place in Kent from 6
to 8 May, and twelve of the indictments are concerned with this.
Little is known of the rising of John Wilkins. The political
history of England between the failure of the Duke of York’s
march to Dartford in February and March 1452 3 and the
opening of the Reading Parliament in March of the following year
is very obscure. Wilkins’ revolt finds no place in the
chronicles of the period, but there is no doubt that it was
associated with this attempt by York to oust his rival, the Duke
of Somerset, from power, and in particular with the conspiracy of
some of York’s followers to raise a new revolt in April 1452
after it had become clear that the agreement made between the King
and York at Blackheath in March was not going to be kept.4
Indictment no. 9 below presents, among others, Robert Ardern
and John Sharp, two of the principals in the April rebellion at
Ludlow, the Duke’s castle, for complicity in the Kent movement.
Though Kent did not rise to support York and his local ally, Lord
Cobham, in March, it appears that the rebels two months |
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later expected help from Cobham and also from
York’s Welsh followers led by his son.5 The
indictments do not mention York but the threats they contain
against the lords of the council and household, the demands for
the petitions of 1450-1, and the references to Cade as being alive
and their leader show that the rising was part of the wave of
agitation against the Court and in favour of York that had
dominated south-east England at least since 1449.
The anti-clerical sentiments attributed to the rebels
also, of course, have a long history, and they are very evident in
the earlier movements of 1450-1, though not in Cade’s Rebellion
proper.6 They are not proof that the rebels held
true lollard beliefs, though Kent was a lollard centre. The
allegation that they planned to hold all things in common
1 "The
People of Kent and of other places came not to him as they had
promised" (The English Chronicle 1377-1474, ed. J.
Davies, Camden Soc. 1856). But see below, file 48.
2 Cal. Pat.
Rolls, 1446-52, p. 577.
3 For this
incident see: Paston Letters, op. cit., i, pp. lxxii-lxxvi;
C. L. Kings-ford, English Historical Literature in the
Fifteenth Century, pp. 297-8.
4 This
conspiracy is mainly known from two indictments, K.B. 9/103 and
270: it was planned to raise the Duke’s followers at Ludlow and
the Marches and also in Kent.
5 See
no. 9 below.
6
As in the Wiltshire rising of July 1450 and the rebellion of
"Bluebeard" in January 1450 (Ancient Indictments, K.B.
9/133, no. 12, 263, no. 20). |