Jack Cade was the leader of the 1450 Kent rebellion which took place in the time of King Henry VI in England.

Some sources suggest Cade was of Irish origin but raised in Sussex where he is alleged to have murdered a woman in 1449. He escaped to France but returned to live in Kent under an assumed name.

In the spring of 1450, Kent peasants protested against what they saw as the weak leadership of King Henry, unfair taxes, corruption and the damaging effect of the loss of France, and issued The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent.

In early June, around 20,000 rebels - mostly peasants but their numbers were swelled by shopkeepers, craftsmen and a few landowners - gathered at Blackheath, south-east of London. While the King sought refuge in Warwickshire, the rebels advanced to Southwark. They set up headquarters in The White Hart before crossing London Bridge on 3 July. The Lord Treasurer was captured and beheaded, but Archbishop John Kemp, the Lord Chancellor persuaded Cade to call off his followers by promising official pardons.

However, after the peasant forces disbanded, a week later, Cade learned that the government regarded him as a traitor and had issued a reward for him dead or alive. He was subsequently killed in a skirmish on the Kent/Sussex border, after which his body was taken to London and quartered for display in different cities, his head ending up on a pike on London Bridge (along with other leaders of the rebellion).