They complained of administrative wrongs such as the practice of purveyance, of abuses of justice, of the oppressions of officers of the exchequer and of the forest, of the ill state of prisons, of the customs of "maintenance" and "livery" by which lords extended their protection to shoals of disorderly persons and overawed the courts by means of them.

Amid ecclesiastical abuses they noted the state of the Church courts, and the neglect of the laws of Provisors.
They demanded that the annual assembly of Parliament, which had now become customary, should be defined by law, and that bills once sanctioned by the Crown should be forthwith turned into statutes without further amendment or change on the part of the royal Council.

With even greater boldness they laid hands on the administration itself.

They not only demanded that the evil counsellors of the last reign should be removed, and that the treasurer of the subsidy on wool should account for its expenditure to the lords, but that the royal Council should be named in Parliament, and chosen from members of either estate of the realm.

Though a similar request for the nomination of the officers of the royal household was refused, their main demand was granted.