In 1607 Thomas Bickford, Master of the Company, prosecuted Nicholas Lowe for carrying on the trade of a smith, he not being free of the City; and in March, 1612, the curious controversy about Daubigny’s patent set all the machinery of the Royal Commissioners and the City into high-pressure activity. It appears that Clement Dawbney, _alias_ Daubigny, desired to have a renewal of his patent for cutting iron into small rods, and that restraint should be placed upon the importation of foreign iron so cut. His petition to the Commissioners of Suits was backed by shipwrights, masters, and nailmakers, who particularly condemned foreign iron. The Commissioners, being unable to decide, referred the matter to three of the City Companies, the Ironmongers, Blacksmiths, and Carpenters. The record books of the Ironmongers contain many interesting details of the inquiry made by that company into the question in dispute, and two of the most active members in the debate were two of the Chamberlyn family—George (then Master, in 1612) and Richard (who had been Master two years previous). The Nailmakers reminded the Commissioners, “as the fathers of the Commonwealth,” that a private patent deprived the poor of their trade and labour; that one or two enriched themselves at the cost of the many. “Wee allwaies have in evrie C. weight eleven or twelve pounds of ends or refuse iron and pay for that after 2_d._ the lb., whereof we make againe ever hardly a halfpenny for everie pound.” Also, “We affirme as workmen that especially it is that the Flemmish iron is as good and servicable and worketh as well as or owne English iron.” The result was a temporary benefit, for the patent was called in; although Sir Francis Bacon, one of the Commissioners, having made a special report subsequently, in 1617, that the monopoly, or patent, would benefit not only the Blacksmiths but the Nailmakers, and was only opposed by Burrell, who had set up a similar ironworks at Danbury, the King renewed the patent, December 11, 1618. The granting of similar monopolies caused no end of bickerings and ill-feeling, and ruin was by no means uncommon among those who neither had capital with which to defend their rights, nor interest at Court to prevent that “bribery and corruption” so common in the surroundings of our seventeenth century monarchy. When, in the previous reign, the Earl of Oxford had endeavoured to obtain one of these patents of privilege against the Company of Pewterers, “whereby he would have undone the pewterers, their wives and families,” Queen Elizabeth acted with discretion—not always a virtue with all-powerful royalty—for she actually granted the Earl’s desired privilege to the company itself! We will now give a full copy of a petition which the Blacksmiths sent to the Privy Council in December, 1631. It is directed to “The Right Honᵇˡᵉ the Lords and others of His Maᵗʸˢ most Honᵇˡᵉ Privy Counsell,” by “the Mʳ Wardens and Assistants of the Society of Blacksmiths, London”:—