And some say he was arraigned in the ship on their manner upon the impeachments and found guilty, etc.
Also he asked the name of the ship, and when he knew it, he remembered Stacy that said, if he might escape the danger of the Tower, he should be safe; and then his heart failed him, for he thought he was deceived, and in the sight of all his men he was drawn out of the great ship in to the boat; and there was an axe and a block, and one of the lewdest of the ship bid him lay down his head, and he should be fair fared with and die on a sword; and took a rusty sword, and smote off his head within half a dozen strokes, and took away his gown of russet, and his doublet of velvet mailed, and laid his body on the sands of Dover; and some say his head was set on a pole by it....
And the sheriff of Kent doth watch the body, and sent his under-sheriff to the judges to know what to do, and also to the King what shall be done.
CADE'S REBELLION (1450).
Source.—Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, pp. 66-68 and 94-99. (Camden Society.)
A.—A Proclamation made by Jack Cade, Captain of the Rebels in Kent.
These be the points, causes and mischiefs of gathering and assembling of us the King's liege men of Kent, the iiij day of June the year of our Lord Miiijcl, the which we trust to Almighty God to remedy, with the help and the grace of God and of our sovereign lord the King, and the poor commons of England, and else we shall die therefore:
We, considering that the King our sovereign lord, by the insatiable covetous malicious pomps, and false and of nought brought up certain persons, that daily and nightly is about his highness, and daily inform him that good is evil and evil is good, as Scripture witnesseth, Ve vobis qui dicitis bonum malum et malum bonum.
Item, they say that our sovereign lord is above his laws to his pleasure, and he may make it and break it as him list, without any distinction. The contrary is true, and else he should not have sworn to keep it, the which we conceived for the highest point of treason that any subject may do to make his prince run into perjury.
Item, they say that the commons of England would first destroy the King's friends and afterwards himself, and then bring the Duke of York to be King....