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Wednesday
We are at a treacherous point in Donald Trump’s attempted fascist takeover of American democracy, with an all-out assault on the rule of law underway. On the one hand, Trump is firing any government lawyer who will not do his bidding or whom he imagines, in the future, will oppose illegal or unconstitutional actions. On the other, he is going after lawyers who are representing his opponents and judges who are ruling against him in court. If he starts outrightly ignoring court orders—and he’s very close to having done so—we will have tilted over into outright dictatorship.
You undoubtedly have heard the Shakespeare quotation, “Kill all the lawyers.” What you may not know is that the line is delivered by a very Trumpian figure, a populist who beheads anyone who stands in his way. Like Trump and his minions, Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher also destroy documents necessary to the maintenance of civil society. I post today an excerpt from a talk that I first shared back in 2016 by a judge who explains the context of the quotation.
U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash, who is married to a close childhood friend of mine and who was just in town, has written eloquently on the many times he has turned to Shakespeare to better administer the law. He concludes this excerpt of his talk to the Intellectual Property Law Institute with the observation, “We [lawyers] have a professional responsibility to speak out when the rule of law is threatened. We should be vigilant to warn against modern day Jack Cades.”
Following the January 6 coup attempt, I compared Trump to Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II. I was able to do so because of the essay Tom had written five years before.
Excerpted from “Lessons in Professionalism” (delivered Sept. 16, 2016, by Thomas W. Thrash, Chief United States District Judge, Northern District of Georgia)
Let me begin by talking about the most famous statement by Shakespeare about lawyers, from Henry VI, Part 2: “First thing, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This is often quoted as a Dan Quayle like statement that there are too many lawyers, or that life would be better without having to have lawyers, or that lawyers are bad people.
In context, however, exactly the opposite is true. Henry VI, Part 2, is set in England in the late 15th century at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Henry VI is a weak and ineffectual king, and the nobles and great lords rule the country. England is in turmoil, with a charlatan named Jack Cade leading an armed mob of angry tenant farmers and tradesmen in a march on London with the aim of overthrowing the ruling elites and all of England’s legal and governmental institutions.
The statement about killing all the lawyers is made by Dick the Butcher, one of the leaders of the mob of anarchists. He wants to get rid of the lawyers because they are the defenders of the rule of law. Lawyers are defenders of a system of justice that curtails the arbitrary use of force. To me, recognizing our special role as defenders of the rule of law is an important aspect of professionalism.
Henry VI, Part 2 is rarely performed these days, which is a shame because it is a fine play. While I have never seen it performed in front of a live audience, I have read accounts by two Shakespearian scholars who have. Their experiences were identical. When Dick the Butcher says, “First thing, let’s kill all the lawyers” the audience laughs. This is a lawyer joke, right? Lawyer jokes are funny. But then Jack Cade follows is up with this:
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o’er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, ’tis the bee’s wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.
Then some of Cade’s men come in with the Clerk of Chatham:
Weaver: “The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and cast accompt.
Cade: O monstrous! Here’s a villain!
Weaver: Has a book in his pocket with red letters in’t.
Cade: Nay, then, he is a conjurer.
Butcher: Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand.
Cade: Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?
Clerk: Emmanuel.
Cade: Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?
Clerk: Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.
All: He hath confessed: away with him! he’s a villain and a traitor.
Cade: Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and ink-horn about his neck.
So Jack Cade and his mob hang the Clerk because he can read and write.
At this point in the live performances, the audiences get quiet and serious. Maybe this is not supposed to be funny. Then the mob kills Lord Stafford and marches on London, where Cade commands his followers to destroy the Inns of Court.
Cade: “So, sirs: now go some and pull down the Savoy, others to the inns of court; down with them all.
Butcher: I have a suit unto your lordship
Cade: Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.
Butcher: Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.
Cade: I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the parliament of England.
So all the lawyers will be killed and the Inns of Court will be destroyed so that no future lawyers may be trained. All property records are to be destroyed, as are all titles and class distinctions. Jack Cade’s words are now the law of England.
A messenger enters and announces the capture of Lord Say:
Messenger: My lord, a prize, a prize! here’s the Lord Say, which sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty fifteens, and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy.
Cade: Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal…. Thou hast most traitorousl corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison; and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them; when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most worthy to live. Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.
When Lord Say pleads for his life, describing the good works that he has done during his lifetime, Cade responds:
Cade: Go, take him away, I say, and strike off his head presently; and then break into his son-in-law’s house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them both upon two poles hither.
All: It shall be done.
Lord Say and his son-in-law are beheaded and their heads are stuck on long poles and paraded through the streets of London. At each street corner the severed heads are put together in a grotesque charade of a kiss.
By this time, the live audiences that had laughed at the lawyer joke are recoiling with horror at what is being done once the rule of law is overthrown.
Eventually, the mob is disbursed and Jack Cade is killed. Before then, however, Shakespeare has taught us an important lesson about the rule of law. As I said, I think that we have a professional responsibility to speak out when the rule of law is threatened. We should be vigilant to warn against modern day Jack Cades.
