PAULET (POWLETT), Lord Henry (c.1602-1672), of Nether Wallop, Hants.

The Paulet marquesses of Winchester were known for their adherence to Catholicism, as was the family of this Member’s first wife. Despite this there is no evidence that Paulet himself was a Catholic. He was returned to the second Caroline Parliament for Andover, seven miles from the family property of Nether Wallop. A few days after attending Charles I’s Coronation, at which he was created a knight of the Bath, he was seriously injured in a brawl with Sir William Stourton, occasioned by rumours that he was keeping a mistress. The affair was hushed up, but Paulet may never have taken his seat in Parliament or left Hampshire again. Private Corresp. of Jane Lady Cornwallis ed. Lord Braybrooke, 141-2; HMC Hodgkin, 283-4.

In the Civil War Paulet was commissioned by the king to raise a regiment of horse, and was captured at the fall of Winchester in December 1642. He was assessed at £4,000 (no doubt in respect of his elder brother’s estate) by the committee for advance of money, but managed to escape sequestration. CCAM, 1261; CCC, 104. He improved his interest at Andover by the acquisition of Amport in around 1649. VCH Hants, iv. 339. He drew up his will on 29 Aug. 1671, thanking God for ‘sparing me so long and giving so gracious a time to repent’. He left a portion of £1,800 to an unmarried daughter, and a lease in Bishop’s Waltham to a younger son, Henry. PROB 11/341, f. 105v. He died on 11 May 1672 and was buried, in accordance with his wishes, in Winchester Cathedral. Woodward and Wilks, i. 76; J. Milner, Hist. Winchester, ii. 120. His elder son Francis Powlett represented Andover in four parliaments between 1679 and 1695.