[Whan this was sayd, euery man reioysed to heare of a wicked person so righteously punished:[775] for though fortune in many points bee iniurious to princes, yet in this and such like she is most righteous: and only deserueth the name of a goddesse, whan she prouideth meanes to punishe and destroy tyrantes. And when we had a while considered the driftes of the king and queene to haue saued this duke: and yet they could not: “It is worth the labour,” sayd one, “to way the workes and iudgements of God: which seeing they are knowen most euidently by comparing contraries, I will touch the story of Iacke Cade in order next following, whome king Henry, with all his puissaunce, was no more able for a while to destroy (yet was hee his rebellious enemy), than hee was to preserue the duke of Suffolke his dearest friend: by which two examples doth appeare howe notably God disposeth all things, and that no force stretcheth farther, than it pleaseth him to suffer. For this Cade being an Irisheman but of meane parentage, of no ability,[776] and lesse power, accompanied with a fewe naked Kentishemen, caused the king with his army at all poynts appointed, to leaue the field, and suffer him to do whatsoeuer hee lusted [for a time, but in the end hee was slaine at Hothfielde in Sussex, and caried thence to London in a cart, and there quartered.][777] In whose behalfe, seeing he is one of fortune’s whelpes, I will trouble you a while to heare the processe of his enterprise, which hee may declare in maner following.”]
How Iacke Cade naming himselfe Mortimer,[778] trayterously rebelling against his King, in Iune, Anno 1450,[779] was for his treasons and cruell doinges worthely punished.
1.
Shall I call it fortune[780] or my froward folly,
That lifted[781] mee vp[782] and laide mee downe belowe?
Or was it courage that made mee so ioly,
Which of the starres and bodies grement growe?[783]
What euer[784] it were this one poynt sure I knowe,
Which shall be meete for euery man to marke:
Our lust and willes our euils chiefly warke.