PAULET, John (c. 1598-1675)

The premier marquess in England, Winchester was descended from a cadet branch of a Somersetshire gentry family that was ennobled under Henry VIII. The family’s estates were centred on the manor of Basing, which had been acquired in the fifteenth century, though by the mid-seventeenth century the Paulets appear to have favoured the smaller former lodge at Hackwood (‘a very indifferent house’) rather than the colossal Tudor edifice of Basing House itself. VCH Hants iv. 116; Add. 61443, f. 171. Having been returned for St Ives, probably on his father’s interest, St John (as he was then styled) was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony in 1624 and took his seat in the House on 24 February. He succeeded to the marquessate five years later. HP Commons, 1604–29, v. 617–18.

As a Catholic and staunch royalist Winchester expended vast sums in the service of the king during the Civil War. The siege of Basing proved to be one of the most protracted focal points in the conflict. When the house at last fell to Oliver Cromwell^‡ in the autumn of 1645, more than 100 of the defenders were put to the sword and Winchester himself was conveyed to the Tower, where he faced prosecution for treason. VCH Hants iv. 115; CSP Dom. 1645–7, p. 202. Although he was permitted to take the waters at Epsom in 1647, Winchester was subject to sequestration and was even deprived of his children, who were taken away to be raised as Protestants. CCC, 105-6. With Basing House in ruins and the profits of his estates granted to his local rivals Sir Thomas Jervoise^‡ and Robert Wallop^‡, Winchester removed to Englefield in Berkshire, which he had acquired prior to the War, after which he appears to have spent the remainder of the Interregnum in comparative obscurity. Ibid. 2372; TNA, SP 46/95/168–183.

Noted by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as a papist in his analysis of the peerage on the eve of the Restoration, Winchester at last returned to the House on 21 May 1660, along with several other Catholic peers. He was thereafter present on more than three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to five committees. LJ, xi. 80, 82, 93, 97, 133. His heir, Charles Powlett, styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton), was returned for the borough of Winchester in the Convention but it is most unlikely that Winchester himself played any role in promoting St John’s return. Over the following few months, he signed a number of certificates testifying to the worthiness of several people seeking offices or restitution to places lost in the service of the former king. CSP Dom. 1660–1, pp. 97, 99, 221, 439. The majority of his efforts, however, were spent in attempting to seek the restoration of his own estates and in effecting a reconciliation with his estranged heir, with whom he appears to have fallen out as a result of the difficulties over recovering his estates. On 7 June Winchester’s petition seeking restoration of his lands was referred to the committee for petitions and the following day the committee was ordered to attempt a reconciliation between the marquess and St John, though this was put off over the ensuing few days. On 23 June Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke, reported from the committee and sought an order for the lord chancellor (Edward Hyde, Baron Hyde, later earl of Clarendon) to approach the king to intervene personally in the dispute. A parallel order was also made for Winchester to be put into possession of such parts of his estate as had not been sold and further orders were made for his neighbours Jervoise and Wallop to hand over the profits from lands they had acquired from him during the Interregnum. On 27 June Winchester was granted a further order empowering him to search for his goods (similar to an order previously granted to James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton).

Despite such early signs of progress, Winchester’s efforts to secure his property ran into almost immediate difficulties and on 11 July he submitted a complaint to the House that not only was one Edward Acton refusing to heed the Lords’ orders but he had also made disparaging remarks about Winchester. Although Acton was ordered to be attached, it is not clear whether any further progress was made with Winchester’s complaint in this instance. On 13 July Winchester joined George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in introducing George Monck as duke of Albemarle. The following day the House read Winchester’s bill for seeking reparations of £19,000 from Jervoise and Wallop and on 18 July he was granted the same order as Buckingham for taking possession of lands sold without his consent. On 23 July Winchester’s bill was committed, but the following day the orders for Winchester and Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, to be put into possession of lands lost during the Interregnum were suspended. Despite this, Winchester still evidently commanded some sympathy in the House as Pembroke reported Winchester’s bill as fit to pass on 30 July and on 2 Aug. the bill was passed at third reading. It subsequently failed to pass the Commons.

Winchester was involved in attempting to compose tensions within the city of Winchester later that summer. As a result, on 23 Aug. 1660 he and John Robartes, Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), recommended to the House that certain members of the corporation be omitted from the city charter when it was next renewed. Their efforts proved unsuccessful. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 259. On 8 Sept. Winchester had some success in his efforts to regain control of his former lands when the sheriff of Dorset was ordered to arrange for the handing over of a farm at Stepleton to Winchester’s agents.

Winchester took his seat in the House in the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he attended on just under 90 per cent of all sitting days and was named to nine committees. LJ, xi. 183-4, 191, 197, 200-1, 215. In January 1661 he was one of a number of peers appointed to consider ways to persuade those peers who had neglected to pay their poll bills to settle their accounts. Bodl. Clarendon 74, f. 91. Winchester’s own ongoing difficulty in securing the return of his property mirrored the experiences of other cavalier landowners such as Derby and also highlighted the tensions evident between Lords and Commons over the Restoration settlement. Following the return of the new Parliament in May 1661 the Commons promoted a bill seeking reparations of £10,000 from Robert Wallop for Winchester. It was brought up from the Commons on 2 July, but was rejected by the Lords on the 12th, following the advice of the lord chief justice that it contravened the act of oblivion and indemnity. Winchester was clearly unwilling to concede defeat and his frequent attendance during the first session (amounting to approximately 84 per cent of all sitting days) no doubt reflected his eagerness to press on with his claims. On 19 July he met with greater support from the Lords when the House agreed to uphold his privilege and prevent the further prosecution of two of his tenants by Essex Paulet (presumably a kinsman), who had been attempting to bring an act of ejectment against them.

The same month Winchester was one of several individuals to be named in provisos attached to the indemnity bill but these met spirited opposition in the House. By 27 July it was reported that William Craven, Baron (later earl of) Craven, was willing to relinquish his claim to a proviso but that Winchester was holding firm and insisting that the proviso relating to him remained in spite of a personal intervention by Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton (Wallop’s brother-in-law), recommending that the House petition on Winchester’s behalf instead. Add. 23215, ff. 40–41. To complicate the matter, on 29 July the Commons refused to accept the Lords’ determination to reject the proviso and requested a conference to discuss the issue. The Commons were initially resolute on Winchester’s part, stressing that it was ‘a just thing’ to recognize his grievance and that they considered ‘the marquess of Winchester to have done much service for the king, and suffered much in his estate for him … and this proviso gives him nothing but his own’. Despite this, the ensuing conference resulted in the Commons’ acceptance of the Lords’ explanation, though they still insisted on petitioning for Winchester and St John to be awarded reparations.

Winchester petitioned the king for payment of £2,000 apiece to his two daughters out of the customs in September 1661, which he hoped would help to ‘reconcile an unhappy difference between himself and his son’. CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 91. He introduced a further bill on 15 Feb. 1662 for confirming him in the possession of estates whose deeds had been destroyed during the sack of Basing, which was successful, and the following month another bill was introduced into the House for confirming the award made by the king to compose the differences between Winchester and his son. On 24 Apr. the dispute, which by then had grown to embrace several other members of Winchester’s family, was again referred to the arbitration of referees named by the king. In the midst of this Winchester was nominated to a dozen committees, the majority of which related to private legislation with which he was by now all too familiar.

Winchester returned to the House for the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on approximately 88 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to ten committees. His high record of attendance no doubt reflects the continuing efforts still being made to settle the family disagreement and may also explain his presence at a dinner hosted by Clarendon in May. Evelyn Diary, iii. 355–6. On 27 May the Commons sent up a further bill for composing the feuding pair’s differences but on 15 June, when Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), reported from the committee named to consider the bill, he informed the House that Winchester did not consent to the measure. The House ordered the bill to be recommitted but on 2 July, when the committee reconvened, chaired by the lord chamberlain (Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester), Winchester once more disclaimed the bill while insisting that he wished to do what might be convenient for his family. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 409–10. Failure to secure what he considered his due as a sufferer in the late king’s cause may have been behind his estimated support for the attempt made by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon that summer, though he may also have been demonstrating solidarity with a fellow Catholic.

Winchester took his seat in the following session on 2 Apr. 1664, after which he attended on 58 per cent of all sitting days, though he was named to just one committee. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 24 Nov., and he attended on almost three-quarters of all sitting days but he was missing at a call of the House on 7 December. He resumed his seat two days later but was named to just three committees during the remainder of the session. Absent for the entirety of the session of October 1665, on 16 Oct. he registered his proxy with Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington. Although he rallied to attend the prorogation of 23 Apr. 1666, Winchester was again missing at a call on 1 October. He resumed his seat the following month on 13 Nov., after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days and was named to two committees. Absent again from the opening of the following session, Winchester was excused once more at a call on 29 Oct. 1667, before resuming his seat on 9 Nov., after which he was present for a quarter of all sitting days. Absent yet again on 17 Feb. 1668, he was once more excused at a call before returning to the House on 22 February.

Winchester sat for the last time on 9 May. Later that year rumours circulated that he had died. Add. 36916, f. 116; Verney ms mic. M636/22, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 22 Oct. 1668. Although these reports proved to be premature, it may be that poor health contributed to his failure to attend from then on. Even so, by April of the following year he confounded all such reports by marrying for the third time, to a bride some 25 years his junior. His new marriage was presumably the reason for a further downturn in relations with his heir, who introduced a bill in chancery relating to the previous settlement made between them, and in August 1669 Winchester’s agents travelled to France to take a deposition from the exiled Clarendon as part of Winchester’s defence. C22/826/50. Whether he was distracted by the renewed dispute with St John or sickness, on 26 Oct. it was noted that Winchester was sending up his proxy and on 6 Nov. the proxy was duly registered with his new father-in-law, Stafford. On 14 Nov. he was again excused and on 10 Feb. 1671 he registered his proxy once more.

That summer, the case between Winchester and his heir was once again rehearsed before the court of chancery but a resolution appears to have eluded father and son. C33/235, ff. 467, 482. Winchester was mistakenly reported to have been among four new privy councillors appointed in April 1672, his name being confused with that of Henry Somerset, marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort). Bodl. Tanner 43, f. 6. Excused at a call on 13 Feb. 1673, on 3 Mar. Winchester again registered his proxy with Stafford. He was excused again on 12 Jan. 1674. A couple of weeks later (27 Jan.) the House was informed that Winchester was facing charges of recusancy, contrary to his privilege. In response the Lords ordered that he should be granted privilege and similar orders were issued for five other Catholic peers. On 12 Feb. Winchester once again registered his proxy with Stafford.

Winchester died on 5 Mar. 1675 and was buried in the church at Englefield, which he had made his home following the destruction of Basing House. Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. to E. Verney, 8 Mar. 1675. Following his death, a memorial inscription was composed by Dryden, which hailed him as:

He who in impious times undaunted stood,
And ’midst rebellion durst be just and good:
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more
Confirmed the cause for which he fought before …

In his will Winchester requested to be buried with as little fuss as possible. To his heir, St John (who succeeded as 6th marquess of Winchester), he bequeathed his parliamentary robes, while the majority of the personal estate at Englefield was left to his younger son, Lord Francis Paulet. To the poor of Englefield Winchester bequeathed £20. The residue of his estate passed to his third wife, Isabella.