] The income required by the statute was forty shillings, which,
says Freeman, we may fairly call forty pounds of our present money.
See E.A. Freeman's "Growth of the English Constitution," p. 97.

These two measures were blows against the free self-government of the
nation, since their manifest tendency was to make the House of Commons
represent the property rather than the people of the country (S319).
(See, too, Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xiii,
S14.)

298. Cade's Rebellion (1450).

A formidable rebellion broke out in Kent (1450), then, as now, one of
the most independent and democratic counties in England. The leader
was Jack Cade, who called himself by the popular name of Mortimer
(S257, note 1, and S279). He claimed to be cousin to Richard, Duke of
York, a nephew of that Edmund Mortimer, now dead, whom Henry IV had
unjustly deprived of his succession to the crown.

Cade, who was a mere adventurer, was quite likely used as a tool by
plotters much higher than himself. By putting him forward they could
judge whether the country was ready for a revolution and change of
sovereigns.

Wat Tyler's rebellion, seventy years before (S250), was almost purely
social in its character, having for its object the emancipation of the
enslaved laboring classes. Cade's insurrection was, on the contrary,
almost wholly political. His chief complaint was that the people were
not allowed their free choice in the election of representatives, but
were forced by the nobility to choose candidates they did not want.
Other grievances for which reform was demanded were excessive
taxastion and the rapacity of the evil counselors who controlled the
King.

Cade entered London with a body of twenty thousand men under strict
discipline. Many of the citizens sympathized with Cade's projects of
reform, and were ready to give him a welcome. He took formal
possession of the place by striking his sword on London Stone,--a
Roman monument still standing, which then marked the center of the
ancient capital,--saying, as Shakespeare reports him, "Now is Mortimer
lord of this city."[1]

After three days of riot and the murder of the King's treasurer, the
rebellion came to an end through a general pardon. Cade, however,
endeavored to raise a new insurrection in the south, but was shortly
after captured, and died of his wounds.

[1] "Now is Mortimer lord of this city, and here, sitting upon London
Stone, I charge and