Epilogue: the Parliament of 1604

Summary

A new reign always provided even greater opportunities for lobbying. The change of monarch brought new hope to those who had previously failed to realise their legislative objectives while winners worried that they could now lose their advantage. The accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603 was no exception. Indeed, the tyranny of Elizabeth's old age may have heightened expectations of change and James certainly encouraged petitions on his progress to London. Although the legislative history of the Jacobean parliaments is another story, the history of many later Elizabethan bills was concluded in James' first parliament which sat in five sessions between March 1604 and December 1610.

The Painters' Company of London were a lobby who had failed to obtain legislative protection against plasterers in 1597–8 and 1601 but succeeded in 1604. Although the Lords had rejected their last Elizabethan attempt on its third reading, a virtually identical measure was approved in the new King's first session despite expensive lobbying by the Plasterers. Two further acts of 1604 must have been of considerable interest to London companies. Curriers, butchers, cordwainers and others involved in leather manufacture vied for influence on the comprehensive Jacobean statute demarcating and regulating their work.