WILLIAM PAULET, PAWLET, or POULET, first Marquis of Winchester (1485?-1572), was eldest son of Sir John Paulet
of Basing, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, the head of a younger branch of an ancient Somerset family seated in the
fourteenth century at Pawlet or Paulet and Road, close to Bridgwater.1 William's great-grandfather acquired
the Hampshire estates by his marriage with Constance, granddaughter and coheiress of Thomas Poynings, baron St. John
of Basing (d. 1428). Hinton St. George, near Crewkerne, became from the middle of the fifteenth century the chief
residence of the elder branch, to which belong Sir Amias Paulet and the present Earl Poulett.2
Paulet's father held a command against the Cornish rebels in 1497 [see Battle of Blackheath],
and died after 1519.3 His monument remains in Basing church. He married his cousin Alice (or Elizabeth?),
daughter of Sir William Paulet, the first holder of Hinton St. George.4 William, their eldest son, was born,
according to Doyle (Official Baronage), in 1485; Brooke, followed by Dugdale, says 1483; while Camden asserts
that he was ninety-seven at his death, which would place his birth in 1474 or 1475.
Paulet was sheriff of Hampshire in 1512, 1519, 1523, and again in 1527.5 Knighted before the end of 1525,
he was appointed master of the king's wards in November of the next year with Thomas Englefield.6 He appears
in the privy council in the same year.7 In the Reformation parliament of 1529-36 he sat as knight of the
shire for Hampshire. Created 'surveyor of the king's widows and governor of all idiots and naturals in the king's hands'
in 1531, he became comptroller of the royal household in May 1532, and a few mouths later joint-master of the royal
woods with Thomas Cromwell.8 Now or later he held the offices of high steward
of St. Swithin's Priory, Winchester, steward of Shene Priory, Dorset, and keeper (1536) of Pamber Forest, near
Basingstoke.9
In the summer of 1533 Paulet went to France as a member of the embassy which the Duke of Norfolk
took over to join Francis I in a proposed interview with the pope, and kept Cromwell informed
of its progress. But Clement's fulmination against the divorce pronounced by
Cranmer caused their recall.10 On his return
he was charged with the unpleasant task of notifying the king's orders to his discarded wife [Catherine
of Aragon] and daughter [Princess, later Queen, Mary]. He was one of the judges of
Fisher and More
in the summer of 1535, and of Anne Boleyn's supposed accomplices in May 1536.
When the pilgrimage of grace broke out in the autumn, Paulet took joint charge of the
musters of the royal forces, and himself raised two hundred men. The rebels complaining of the exclusion of noblemen from
the king's council, Henry reminded them of the presence of Paulet and others.11 In carrying out his royal master's
commands he was not, it would appear, unnecessarily harsh. Anne Boleyn excepted him from her
complaints against the council; 'the controller,' she admitted,' was a very gentleman.'12
His services did not go unrewarded. The king visited his 'poor house' at Basing in October 1536.13 The site and
other possessions of Netley Abbey, near Southampton, were granted to him in August 1536.14 He acted as treasurer
of the household from October 1537 to March 1539, when the old St. John peerage was recreated in his favour, but without
the designation 'of Basing'.15
The new peer became the first master of
Henry VIII's Court of Wards and Liveries in 1540, Knight of the Garter
in 1543 (April), and, two years later, governor of Portsmouth. Appointed Lord Chamberlain of the Household in May 1543, he was
great master (i.e. lord steward) of the same from 1545 to 1550.16 A year before the king's death he became
lord president of the council, and was nominated in Henry's will one of the eighteen executors who were to act as a council of
regency during his son's minority.
Under Somerset, St. John was for a few months in 1547 keeper of the great seal. He joined in
overthrowing the protector [i.e. Somerset], and, five days after parliament had deposed Somerset, was created (19 Jan. 1550)
earl of Wiltshire, in which county he had estates.17 The white staff laid down by Somerset was given to the new earl,
who contrived to remain lord treasurer until his death, twenty-two years later. Warwick succeeded
to his old offices of great master of the household and lord president of the council.18 Though Wiltshire was not, like
Northampton and Herbert, prominently identified with Warwick, he
received a further advance in the peerage on the final fall of Somerset. On 11 Oct. 1551, the same day that Warwick became duke of
Northumberland, he was created marquis of Winchester.19 Six weeks later he acted as lord steward at the trial of Somerset.
Careful as Winchester was to trim his sails to the prevailing wind, the protestants did not trust him. Knox,
unless he exaggerates, boldly denounced him in his last sermon before Edward VI as the 'crafty fox
Shebna unto good King Ezekias sometime comptroller and then treasurer.'20 Northumberland and Winchester, Knox tells us,
ruled all the court, the former by stout courage and proudness of stomach, the latter by counsel and wit. Though the reformers
considered him a papist, Winchester did not scruple to take out a license for himself, his wife, and twelve friends to eat flesh in
Lent and on fast days.21 Knox did him an injustice when he accused him of having been a prime party to Northumberland's
attempt to change the order of the succession. He was, on the contrary, strongly opposed to it: and even after he had bent, like
others, before the imperious will of the duke, and signed the letters patent of 21 June 1553, he did not cease to urge in the council
the superior claim of the original act of succession.22
After the death of the young king and the proclamation of Queen Jane, Winchester delivered the crown
jewels to the latter on 12 July. According to the Venetian Badoaro, he made her very indignant by informing her of Northumberland's
intention to have her husband crowned as well.23 But Winchester and several other lords were only waiting until they could
safely turn against the duke. The day after he left London to bring in Mary (15 July) they made a vain
attempt to get away from the Tower, where they were watched by the garrison Northumberland had placed there; Winchester made an excuse
to go to his house, but was sent for and brought back at midnight.
On the 19th, however, after the arrival of news of Northumberland's ill-success, the lords contrived to get away to Baynard's Castle,
and, after a brief deliberation, proclaimed Queen Mary. She confirmed him in all his offices, to which in
March 1556 that of lord privy seal was added, and thoroughly appreciated his care and vigilance in the management of her exchequer. He
gave a general support to Gardiner in the House of Lords, and did not refuse to convey
Elizabeth to the Tower. It was Sussex,
however, and not he, who generously took the risk of giving her time to make a last appeal to her sister.24 So firmly was
Winchester convinced of the impolicy of her Spanish marriage, that even after it was approved he was heard to swear that he would set
upon Philip when he landed.25 But he was rapidly brought to acquiesce in its accomplishment, and
entertained Philip and Mary at Basing on the day after their wedding.
On Mary's death Winchester rode through London with the proclamation of her successor [Queen Elizabeth I],
and, in spite of his advanced age, obtained confirmation in the onerous office of treasurer, and acted as speaker of the House of Lords
in the parliaments of 1559 and 1566, showing no signs of diminished vigour. He voted in the small minority against any alteration of the
church services, but did not carry his opposition further; and Heath, Archbishop of York, and Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, were deprived at
his house in Austin Friars.26 For some years he was on excellent terms with Cecil, to whom he wrote,
after an English reverse before Leith in May 1560, that 'worldly things would sometimes fall out contrary, but if quietly taken could be
quietly amended.'27
Three months later, when the queen visited him at Basing, he sent the secretary warning against certain 'back counsels' about the queen.28
Elizabeth was so pleased with the good cheer he made her that she playfully lamented his great age, 'for, by my troth,' said she, 'if my
lord treasurer were but a young man, I could find it in my heart to have him for a husband before any man in England.'29 Two
years later, when she was believed to be dying, Winchester persuaded the council to agree to submit the rival claims to the succession to
the crown lawyers and judges, and to stand by their decision.30
He was opposed to all extremes. In 1561, when there was danger of a Spanish alliance to cover a union between the queen and
Dudley, he supported the counter-proposal of alliance with the French Calvinists, but seven years later he
deprecated any such championship of protestantism abroad as might lead to a breach with Spain, and recommended that the Duke of Alva
should be allowed to procure clothes and food for his soldiers in England, 'that he might be ready for her grace when he might do her
any service.'31 He disliked the turn Cecil was endeavouring to give to English policy, and he was
in sympathy with, if he was not a party to, the intrigues of 1569 against the secretary.32
Winchester was still in harness when he died, a very old man, at Basing House on 10 March 1572. His tomb remains on the south side of
the chancel of Basing church. Winchester was twice married, and lived to see 103 of his own descendants.33 His first wife
was Elizabeth (d. 25 Dec. 1568), daughter of Sir William Capel, lord mayor of London in 1503, by whom he had four sons — (1) John,
second marquis of Winchester; (2) Thomas; (3) Chediok, governor of Southampton under Mary and Elizabeth; (4) Giles — and four
daughters: Elizabeth, Margaret, Margerie, and Eleanor, the last of whom married Sir Richard Pecksall, master of the buckhounds, and
died on 26 Sept. 1558.34 By his second wife, Winifrid, daughter of Sir John Bruges, alderman of London, and widow of Sir
Richard Sackville, chancellor of the exchequer, he left no issue. She died in 1586.
Sir Robert Naunton, in his reminiscences of Elizabethan statesmen (he was nine years old at Winchester's death), reports that in his
old age he was quite frank with his intimates on the secret of the success with which he had weathered the revolutions of four reigns.
'Questioned how he had stood up for thirty years together amidst the changes and ruins of so many chancellors and great personages,
"Why," quoth the marquis, "ortus sum e salice non ex quercu."35 And truly it seems the old man had taught them all, especially
William, earl of Pembroke.'36
Winchester rebuilt Basing House, which he obtained license to fortify in 1531, on so princely a scale that, according to Camden, his
posterity were forced to pull down a part of it. An engraving of the mansion after the famous siege is given in Baigent (p. 428). The
marquis was one of those who sent out the expedition of Chancellor and Willoughby to northern seas in 1553, and became a member of the
Muscovy Company incorporated under Mary.37 A portrait by a painter unknown is engraved in Doyle's 'Official Baronage,' and
another, which represents him with the treasurer's white staff; in Walpole's edition of Naunton (p. 103), from a painting also, it would
seem, unassigned, in King's College, Cambridge. Two portraits are mentioned in the catalogue of the Tudor exhibition (Nos. 323, 348),
in both of which he grasps the white staff. If the latter, which is in the Duke of Northumberland's collection, is correctly described,
its ascription to Holbein must be erroneous, as he did not become treasurer until 1550, and the artist died in 1543.
1. Collinson, History of Somerset, ii. 166, iii. 74.
2. [i.e., "present" at the writing of this article in 1909; the last Earl Poulett died in 1973].
3. Cayley, Architectural Memoir of Old Basing Church, p. 10; cf. Baigent, History of Basingstoke, p. 19; Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 376.
4. cf. Notes and Queries, 5th ser. viii 135.
5. Calendar of Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer and Gairdner.
6. ib. iv. 2000, 2673.
7. ib. iv. 3096.
8. ib. v. 80, 1069, 1549.
9. ib. x. 392.
10. ib. vi. 391, 661, 830; The Chronicle of Calais, p. 44.
11. Letters and Papers, xi. 957, xii. pt. i. 1013.
12. ib. x. 797.
13. ib. ix. 639.
14. ib. xi. 385.
15. Courthope, Historic Peerage.
16. Machyn, Diary, p. xiv.
17. Froude, History of England, iv. 498.
18. Machyn, pp. xiv-xv.
19. Journal of Edward VI, p. 47; Calendar of State Papers, ed. Lemon, p. 35; Dugdale, followed by Courthope and Doyle, gives 12 Oct.
20. Strype, Memorials and Annals, Clarendon Press Ed. iv. 71.
21. Rymer's Foedera, xv. 329.
22. Froude, v. 162,168.
23. ib. v. 190.
24. ib. vi. 379.
25. Froude, v. 812.
26. ib. vi. 194; Machyn, p. 203.
27. Froude, vi. 370.
28. ib. vi. 413.
29. Strype, Annals, i. 367.
30. Froude, vi. 589.
31. ib. vi. 461, viii. 445.
32. Camden, Annales, p.151.
33. ibid.
34. Machyn, p. 307; Dugdale, ii. 377.
35. [trans. "I came of the willow, not of the oak."]
36. Fragmenta Regalia, p. 95.
37. Calendar of State Papers, ed. Lemon, p. 66; Strype, Memorials, v. 620.
Source:
Tait, James. "William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol XV. Sidney Lee, Ed.
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909. 537-539.
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