POLITICAL HISTORY give us much information upon the matter/ The reigns of the three Henries contain little of importance for the political history of this county, though it would be easy to compile a formidable list of Sussex men who served their King in the French wars. It is, however, enough for our purpose to note that at the great victory of Agincourt the Earl of Arundel numbered amongst his esquires members of such prominent Sussex families as Lewkenore, Halsham, Waleys, Bartelot, Michelgrove, Hussey, Covert, Culpepper, and William Wolf of Ashington, who took prisoner the Sire de Bursegand, seneschal of France ; other Sussex men served under Sir Thomas West, Sir Roger Fiennes and Lord Camoys ; but Lord Poynings, Sir John Dalingrugge and Sir John Pelham, who all served in other campaigns, were not present on this occasion/ Against this picture of honourable, or even brilliant, service rendered by Sussex soldiers must be set the terrible record of rapes, robberies and murders done by the troops quartered in the county or passing through it on their way to embark for France/ The great event of the fifteenth century so far as Sussex is concerned was the rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450. The pitiable state of the county, burdened with taxation, overrun with a brutal soldiery and exposed to constant raids — the men of Tarring dared not even go to neighbouring markets lest the French should take advantage of their absence to burn the village,* as they had burnt Rye and Winchelsea in 1448, — combined with the socialistic, or communistic, teaching of the Lollards, had produced a state of ferment within the county which only required the presence of a leader to burst into active rebel- lion. Such a leader was found in Jack Cade, who had been a servant of Thomas Dacre of Heathfield, and who, assuming the name of Mortimer, at the end of May began an abortive insurrection in Kent, which he successfully revived in July. That he had been for some time organizing action is clear, for on 17 April one William Dalby of Brookhampton and London came with others by his orders into the forest of Worth and there harangued the populace in an extraordinary rigmarole about the coming of ' a marvellous and terrible man of high birth and of the ancient royal race, bearing on his arms ^ certain wild beasts, namely, a red lion and a white Hon ' with a force of two hundred thousand armed men, and that this ' marvellous man ' would pursue the ' fox and leopard,' meaning King Henry, until he should obtain the mastery and be crowned king." Unlike the Peasants' Rising of 1381, this insurrection was aimed against the King, and while loyalty to Richard had been the mark of the former, this was marked by enmity » Horsfield, Hist, of Suss. i. 315. a Suss. Arch. Coll. xv. 123-7. 3 Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iv. 251, 351. * Chart. R. 22 Hen. VI. 6 ' Gerens in brachiis suis.' A fine example of dog-Latin. This reference to Cade's arms is curious, as he would naturally have assumed the arms as well as the name of Mortimer. <^ Anct. Indictments, 122. The account of this speech is much confused, the deponents having evi- dently been puzzled by the rather high-flown language. Houndslow Heath is named, apparently as the place where the battle between the ' marvellous man ' and the ' false and traitor king was to take place. I 513 65
