Act 4, Scene 3

Another part of Blackheath.

[Alarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain. Enter CADE and the rest.]
Jack Cade
2335 Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?
Dick the Butcher
2336 Here, sir.
Jack Cade
2337 They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou
2338 behavedst thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own
2339 slaughter-house; therefore thus will I reward thee:
2340 the Lent shall be as long again as it is, and thou
2341 shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one.
Dick the Butcher
2342 I desire no more.
Jack Cade
2343 And, to speak truth, thou deservest no less.
2344 This monument of the victory will I bear
[putting on Sir Humphrey's brigandine]
Jack Cade
2345 ;
2346 and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come
2347 to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.
Dick the Butcher
2348 If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and
2349 let out the prisoners.
Jack Cade
2350 Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards
2351 London.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2340cultural context
“Lent shall be as long again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one”
In Elizabethan England, butchers were forbidden by law to sell meat during Lent (the 40-day fast before Easter), so a doubled Lent would mean 80 days a year when Dick could not legally trade. Cade's 'reward' is a comic mock-royal patent: instead of granting Dick wealth or land, he grants him an exemption from the religious restriction on slaughter. 'A licence to kill for a hundred lacking one' means a grant to slaughter 99 animals — just short of a clean round number, a jokingly exact quasi-legal formula.
historical Jack Cade's Rebellion
TLN 2344historical topical
“monument of the victory will I bear”
The stage direction specifies that Cade puts on Sir Humphrey Stafford's brigandine — a coat of body armor made of small iron or steel plates riveted inside leather or heavy cloth. By wearing the dead commander's armor as a 'monument of the victory,' Cade enacts a ritual of conquest: stripping a fallen enemy's arms and wearing them was a recognized way of displaying triumph. It is also a grotesque parody of the heraldic custom by which a victor displayed captured coats of arms.
historical Jack Cade's Rebellion
TLN 2346historical topical
“bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come to London”
Dragging a condemned person at a horse's tail through the streets was the prescribed first stage of the official punishment for treason in England — traitors were drawn (dragged) to the place of execution before being hanged and quartered. Cade appropriates this royal penal ritual, applying it to the bodies of the king's own officers, inverting the state's authority: those who came to enforce order are now treated as traitors.
historical Jack Cade's Rebellion
TLN 2347cultural context
“the mayor's sword borne before us”
The City of London's Lord Mayor was attended in all formal processions by an official sword-bearer who carried an upright ceremonial sword — the city's symbol of delegated royal justice — before him. Having the mayor's sword 'borne before' him would signal that Cade commands the civic dignity of the mayor himself. It is the clearest statement in the scene of Cade's fantasy: he is not a rebel but a ruler who will be received in London with the full honors of a sovereign.
historical Jack Cade's Rebellion