Yet “the complaint,” which consisted of fifteen articles, was no revolutionary document. It contained protests against the royal threat to lay waste Kent in revenge for the death of the Duke of Suffolk; the diversion of the royal revenue raised by heavy taxation to “other men”; the banishment of the Duke of York “to make room for unworthy ministers who would not do justice by law, but demanded bribes and gifts”; the purveyance of goods for the royal household without payment; the arrest and imprisonment on false charges of treason of persons whose goods and lands were subsequently seized by the king’s servants, who then “either compassed their deaths or kept them in prison while they got possession of their property by royal grant”; the interference with the old right of free election of knights of the shire by “the great rulers of the country sending letters to enforce their tenants and other people to choose other persons than the common will is to elect”; the misconduct of the war in France, demanding inquiry and the punishment by law of those found guilty. Complaint was also made of various local grievances--the insecurity of property, the arbitrary conduct of the lords of the seaports, the extortion in taxation owing to sheriffs and under-sheriffs farming their offices, the fines exacted by sheriffs for non-compliance with the orders of the court of exchequer (whose writs were sealed with green wax) when no summons or warning had been given, and the “sore expense” incurred by there being only one Court of Sessions in the whole county. Five “requests” were added to the bill of complaints. These expressed the desire of the commons that the king should reign “like a king royal”; that “all the false progeny and affinity of the Duke of Suffolk” should be banished from the king’s presence and brought to trial, and the Duke of York and his friends included in the royal council; that punishment should be meted out to those responsible for the death of the Duke of Gloucester; that the extortions practised daily by the king’s servants in the taking of goods from the people should cease; that the old Statute of Labourers for keeping down wages should be abolished; and that the “false traitors” and “great extortioners,” Lord Say and Crowmer, the sheriff of Kent, should be brought low. In brief, the charter of the commons of Kent demanded the total expulsion of all Suffolk’s ministers and relatives from public service, the return of the Duke of York and his party to power, the suppression of the bribery, corruption, and extortion practised by the sheriffs and government servants, and the repeal of the Statute of Labourers.