Jack had been increasingly exasperated as the northern winter of 1450 faded slowly into spring, bluebells appeared in the lanes and fields of Kent and new leaves rustled in the forests. Natural wonders didn't especially impress Jack, but he was a loyal man of Kent and took a lively interest in the life of his county and such affairs of state as might affect people he would soon describe as 'the poor commons of Kent'.
As far as Jack was concerned, there was much to worry about. Like his lower class compatriots, he was rapidly losing faith in the capacity of King Henry VI to manage the responsibilities and demands of high office. Jack wasn't much concerned with whether England should claim the French throne, an argument dividing Henry's court, but he was certainly interested in the behaviour of some important courtiers and office holders. In the view of many of his increasingly dissident subjects, the king was incapable of reining in the corruption, exploitation and incompetence endemic in the royal court, and he was too spineless to make a stand.
When he did act, seeking to show real determination and halt the waves of insubordination and discontent that were poisoning his authority, Henry's rumoured intention was so outrageous and blazoned with confected rage that the situation was made more critical. Watching these developments, Jack, under-educated, unsophisticated and full of grievance, a dogged product of what in a later age would be known as the school of hard knocks, but buoyed with a sense that the people's turn had come, organised the creation and distribution of a manifesto entitled The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent.
The Complaint enumerated 15 'complaints' and five 'demands' to be brought to the notice of the king. It was like a modern royal commission except that the supplicants looked to the king and not a judge to deliver the final decisions. And, despite its title, it was not solely the product of the work-a-day people of Kent. Its supporters included members of parliament, lords and other leaders of the county.
As the complainers began to look more and more like rebels, their leader, Jack Cade, who would soon claim to be Jack Mortimer — a better lineage — showed both the strength of his outraged convictions and the shallowness of his understanding of events and machinations that would quickly run out of his control.
As Shakespeare saw Jack