Powlett was descended from lord treasurer Winchester (Sir William Paulet†) through a younger son who acquired the Dorset estate of Melplash by marriage. Although the mansion there was splendidly refurbished early in James I’s reign, Powlett settled at Bridy, where he built himself a new house.
In 1628 Powlett stood for a seat at Bridport, three miles from his house. The corporation initially rejected his candidature, but after the Commons, on the grounds of a restrictive franchise, declared the election result void, he came in at the ensuing election. However, he left no trace on the Parliament’s records.
The sale of one of Powlett’s manors in 1629 was probably an early sign of the financial problems that marked his later life. He apparently took up residence on his second wife’s dower lands at Butleigh, testifying in 1631 against a local man who had criticized the Crown’s plans to enclose Sedgemoor in Somerset. His role at Court as an esquire of the body, while prestigious, probably added to the strain on his finances, and during the next few years he and his son William mortgaged or sold much of their ancestral estate.