ABSTRACT
Marlowe's Envy portrayed a resentment that was powerless and ignorant, but Shakespeare soon created a much more dangerous figure whose anti-intellectualism combined with outright sedition. In the turbulent fourth act of King Henry VI Part 2 the Kentish revolutionary Jack Cade menaces London and threatens all established hierarchy. Shakespeare's Cade enters the stage accompanied by Dick the butcher, Smith the weaver, a sawyer and ‘infinite numbers’. Addressing the ‘good people’ he offers a radical programme and articulates grievances that were widespread in the 1590s, a decade troubled by bad harvests, urban insurrection and food riots. Cade promises to cut inflation immediately, slashing the price of staple commodities— bread and beer—by more than a third. He will introduce comprehensive land reform by abolishing hated enclosures so that ‘all the realm shall be in common’. But Cade's commonwealth will also be a monarchy, with himself king in a Land of Cockaigne: ‘There shall be no money, all shall eat and drink on my score.’ At this point, Cade's associates bring a schoolmaster before him, one who ‘can write and read, and cast accompt’ [is numerate]. Cade affects to be appalled by the clerk's skills: CADE
O monstrous.
SMITHWe took him setting of boys' copies [devising pen exercises].
CADEHere's a villain!
SMITHH' as a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
CADENay then, he is a conjurer.
DICKNay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.
CADEI am sorry for’t. The man is a proper man, of mine honour: unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee […] Dost thou use to write thy name? Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?
CLERKSir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.
ALLHe hath confessed: away with him! He's a villain and a traitor.
CADEAway with him I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about his neck. 1
