The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 225
Exit Whitmore with Suffolk and others.
LIEUTENANT
And as for these whose ransom we have set,
It is our pleasure one of them depart:
Therefore come you with us, and let him go.
Exeunt all but First Gentleman.
Enter WHITMORE with Suffolk’s body and head.
WHITMORE There let his head and lifeless body lie,
Until the Queen his mistress bury it.
Exit.
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1 GENTLEMAN O barbarous and bloody spectacle!
His body will I bear unto the King.
If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;
So will the Queen, that living held him dear.
Exit with the body and head.
4.2 Enter two of the rebels, GEORGE and NICK, with long staves.
GEORGE Come and get thee a sword, though made of a
lath; they have been up these two days.
NICK They have the more need to sleep now, then.
GEORGE I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to
dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new
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nap upon it.
NICK So he had need, for ’tis threadbare. Well, I say it
was never merry world in England since gentlemen
came up.
GEORGE O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in
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handicraftsmen.
NICK The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.
GEORGE Nay, more, the King’s Council are no good
workmen.
NICK True; and yet it is said, ‘Labour in thy vocation’;
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which is as much to say as, ‘Let the magistrates be
labouring men’; and therefore should we be magistrates.
GEORGE Thou hast hit it; for there’s no better sign of a
brave mind than a hard hand.
NICK I see them! I see them! There’s Best’s son, the
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tanner of Wingham.
GEORGE He shall have the skins of our enemies to make
dog’s leather of.
NICK And Dick the butcher.
GEORGE Then is sin struck down like an ox, and
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iniquity’s throat cut like a calf.
NICK And Smith the weaver.
GEORGE Argo, their thread of life is spun.
NICK Come, come, let’s fall in with them.
Drum. Enter CADE, Dick the Butcher, Smith the Weaver, and a sawyer, with infinite numbers carrying long staves.
CADE We, John Cade, so termed of our supposed father –
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BUTCHER [aside] Or rather of stealing a cade of herrings.
CADE For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired
with the spirit of putting down kings and princes.
Command silence.
BUTCHER Silence!
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CADE My father was a Mortimer –
BUTCHER [aside] He was an honest man, and a good
bricklayer.
CADE My mother a Plantagenet –
BUTCHER [aside] I knew her well, she was a midwife.
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CADE My wife descended of the Lacies –
BUTCHER [aside] She was indeed a pedlar’s daughter
and sold many laces.
WEAVER [aside] But now of late, not able to travel with
her furred pack, she washes bucks here at home.
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CADE Therefore am I of an honourable house.
BUTCHER [aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is
honourable, and there was he born, under a hedge; for
his father had never a house but the cage.
CADE Valiant I am.
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WEAVER [aside] ’ A must needs, for beggary is valiant.
CADE I am able to endure much.
BUTCHER [aside] No question of that, for I have seen
him whipped three market days together.
CADE I fear neither sword nor fire.
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WEAVER [aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat
is of proof.
BUTCHER [aside] But methinks he should stand in fear
of fire, being burnt i’th’ hand for stealing of sheep.
CADE Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and
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vows reformation. There shall be in England seven
half-penny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped
pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to
drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common,
and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And
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when I am king, as king I will be –
ALL God save your majesty!
CADE I thank you, good people. – There shall be no
money, all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like
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brothers and worship me their lord.
BUTCHER The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
CADE Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be
made parchment; that parchment, being scribbled
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o’er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings, but
I say ’tis the bee’s wax; for I did but seal once to a thing
and I was never mine own man since. How now?
Who’s there?
Enter some, bringing forward the Clerk of Chartham.
WEAVER The clerk of Chartham: he can write and read
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and cast account.
CADE O, monstrous!
WEAVER We took him setting of boys’ copies.
CADE Here’s a villain!
WEAVER H’as a book in his pocket with red letters in’t.
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CADE Nay, then, he is a conjuror.
BUTCHER Nay, he can make obligations and write court-
hand.
CADE I am sorry for’t. The man is a proper man, of mine
honour; unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come
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hither, sirrah, I must examine thee. What is thy name?
CLERK Emmanuel.
BUTCHER They use to write that on the top of letters.
’Twill go hard with you.
CADE Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name?
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Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-
dealing man?
CLERK Sir, I thank God I have been so well brought up
that I can write my name.
ALL He hath confessed: away with him! He’s a villain
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and a traitor.
CADE Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and
inkhorn about his neck. Exit one with the Clerk.
Enter MICHAEL.
MICHAEL Where’s our general?
CADE Here I am, thou particular fellow.
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MICHAEL Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his
brother are hard by, with the King’s forces.
CADE Stand, villain, stand, or I’ll fell thee down. He
shall be encountered with a man as good as himself.
He is but a knight, is ’a?
MICHAEL No.
CADE To equal him I will make myself a knight
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presently. [Kneels.] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer.
[Rises.] Now have at him!
Enter Sir Humphrey STAFFORD and his Brother with drum and soldiers.
STAFFORD Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,
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Marked for the gallows, lay your weapons down;
Home to your cottages, forsake this groom.
The King is merciful,
if you revolt.
BROTHER But angry, wrathful and inclined to blood,
If you go forward: therefore yield, or die.
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CADE As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not.
It is to you, good people, that I speak,
Over whom, in time to come, I hope to reign,
For I am rightful heir unto the crown.
STAFFORD Villain, thy father was a plasterer,
And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?
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CADE And Adam was a gardener.
BROTHER What of that?
CADE Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,
Married the Duke of Clarence’ daughter, did he not?
STAFFORD Ay, sir.
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CADE By her he had two children at one birth.
BROTHER That’s false.
CADE Ay, there’s the question; but I say ’tis true.
The elder of them, being put to nurse,
Was by a beggar-woman stolen away;
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And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
Became a bricklayer when he came to age.
His son am I; deny it if you can.
BUTCHER Nay, ’tis too true, therefore he shall be King.
WEAVER Sir, he made a chimney in my father’s house,
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and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it;
therefore deny it not.
STAFFORD
And will you credit this base drudge’s words,
That speaks he knows not what?
ALL Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.
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BROTHER
Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.
CADE [aside] He lies, for I invented it myself. – Go to,
sirrah, tell the King from me, that for his father’s sake,
Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-
counter for French crowns, I am content he shall
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reign, but I’ll be Protector over him.
BUTCHER And furthermore, we’ll have the Lord Saye’s
head for selling the dukedom of Maine.
CADE And good reason, for thereby is England mained
and fain to go with a staff, but that my puissance holds
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it up. Fellow kings, I tell you that that Lord Saye hath
gelded the commonwealth and made it an eunuch; and
more than that, he can speak French, and therefore he
is a traitor.
STAFFORD O gross and miserable ignorance!
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CADE Nay, answer if you can: the Frenchmen are our
enemies; go to then, I ask but this – can he that speaks
with the tongue of an enemy be a good counsellor or no?
ALL No, no, and therefore we’ll have his head.
BROTHER Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,
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Assail them with the army of the King.
STAFFORD Herald, away, and throughout every town
Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;
That those which fly before the battle ends
May, even in their wives’ and children’s sight,
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Be hanged up for example at their doors.
And you that be the King’s friends, follow me.
Exeunt the two Staffords and soldiers.
CADE And you that love the commons, follow me.
Now show yourselves men; ’tis for liberty.
We will not leave one lord, one gentleman:
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Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,
For they are thrifty honest men, and such
As would, but that they dare not, take our parts.
BUTCHER They are all in order and march toward us.
CADE But then are we in order when we are most out of
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order. Come, march forward. Exeunt.
4.3 Alarums to the fight, wherein both the Staffords are slain. Enter CADE and the rest.
CADE Where’s Dick, the butcher of Ashford?
BUTCHER Here, sir.
CADE They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and
thou behaved’st thyself as if thou hadst been in thine
own slaughterhouse. Therefore, thus will I reward
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thee: the Lent shall be as long again as it is, and thou
shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one.
BUTCHER I desire no more.
CADE And, to speak truth, thou deserv’st no less.
[Takes up Stafford’s sword.] This monument of the
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victory will I bear, and the bodies shall be dragged at
my horse heels till I do come to London, where we will
have the Mayor’s sword borne before us.
BUTCHER If we mean to thrive and do good, break open
the gaols and let out the prisoners.