PAGET, William (1637-1713)

Little is known of Paget before 1656, when he was given a pass to travel abroad. CSP Dom. 1655–6, p. 577. He does not appear to have been active at the time of the Restoration, or to have made any effort to involve himself in Parliament prior to his accession to the peerage. His marriage in July 1661 to Frances, granddaughter of Robert Pierrepont^†, earl of Kingston, presumably reflected his own adherence to his father’s presbyterian convictions.

Despite previously exercising no obvious political interest, Paget was quick to take his place in the Lords following his father’s death in October 1678, just as allegations of a Popish Plot were gaining credence. He entered the House on 25 Nov., two days after receiving his writ of summons, after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days. The day after his first appearance he was named to the committee considering the bill for raising the militia. On 29 Nov. he supported the motion agreeing with the Commons that the Catholic queen should be removed from Whitehall and he was one of three peers to register their dissents when the motion was rejected. He returned to the House on 8 Mar. and attended four days of the abortive session before taking his seat again at the opening of the new Parliament on 15 March. He was thereafter present on almost 93 per cent of all sitting days.

In advance of the session he was estimated to be an opponent of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and in April Paget voted accordingly in favour of Danby’s attainder. On 8 May he supported the motion to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and he entered his dissent again when the House resolved not to do so. On 23 May he registered two dissents: the first at the resolution to instruct the Lords’ committee meeting with the Commons that the Lords would give no other answer concerning the bishops’ voting, and the second in opposition to the resolution to proceed with the trial of the five impeached lords before proceeding with that of Danby. Four days later, Paget dissented once more at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the bishops’ right to remain in court during capital cases until sentence of death was pronounced.

Following the dissolution of the first Exclusion Parliament, Paget exercised his interest at Tamworth on behalf of his father’s old retainer, John Swinfen^‡. Staffs. RO, Paget pprs. D603/K/3/2, Swinfen to Paget, 16 July 1679. He was also active in the Buckinghamshire election in company with George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in support of John Hampden^‡ and Thomas Wharton, later marquess of Wharton. Verney ms mic. M636/33, W. Grosvenor to J. Verney, 20 Aug. 1679; J.R. Jones, First Whigs, 99. Paget took his seat in the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He spoke in the House during the debates on the exclusion bill and on 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the bill at first reading. He then subscribed the resulting protest when the measure was thrown out. On 23 Nov. he supported moves to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation and again protested when the motion was not adopted. On 7 Dec. he found William Stafford, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. A month later, on 7 Jan. 1681, Paget entered his dissent at the failure to put resolutions to commit Sir William Scroggs or to suspend him from office.

Paget was one of 16 peers to subscribe the petition of January 1681 opposing the decision to summon the new Parliament to Oxford. Vox Patriae (1681), 6–7. Having failed to secure his point Paget attended four days out of the seven-day session of March 1681, during which he remained opposed to Danby’s continuing attempts to secure bail. On 26 Mar. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by impeachment, and in May he was in court for Fitzharris’ trial. CSP Dom. 1680–1, p. 264. Later that year, in November, he offered sanctuary in his London home to Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, following the latter’s release from the Tower. HMC Ormonde, vi. 242. The death of his wife the same month seems not to have affected Paget unduly as he appears to have remarried almost immediately. His second marriage, to his first cousin Isabella Irby, probably happened within a month of his first wife’s death. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, ii. 289.

Paget’s attendance at the horse races at Chester in August 1682 may have pointed to involvement with James Scott, duke of Monmouth, who was at that point touring the midlands. CSP Dom. 1682, p. 362. The following summer, along with his kinsmen Thomas Foley^‡ and Philip Foley^‡, he was implicated in the Rye House Plot. Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 160. Between September 1682 and February of the following year Paget acted to suppress Samuel Starkey, one of the government witnesses who had searched his home, imprisoning him for trespass and then stalling efforts to bring Starkey to trial to ensure that he remained incarcerated. CSP Dom. 1683 July-Sept. pp. 420–2; CSP Dom. 1683–4, pp. 15, 48, 282–3.

Paget was called as a witness for the defence at the trial of Algernon Sydney^‡ in November 1683 and again at John Hampden’s trial in February 1684. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 290, 298. He stood bail for the latter. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, i. 412. Although wholly out of sympathy with the new regime, Paget attended more than 90 per cent of all sitting days in the Parliament summoned following James II’s accession. On 20 June 1685 he reported from two committees, for Isaac Savory’s change of name and for Edward Mellor’s estate bill. During that year he suffered a series of personal blows with the death of his heir, William, in August and of his second wife in December 1685, a loss that undoubtedly affected him profoundly. He also appears to have narrowly avoided being proceeded against for complicity in the Monmouth rebellion. Ibid. iii. 70; Add. 70013, ff. 328–9; HMC 12th Rep. pt. 6, pp. 406–7.

Paget was granted leave to travel abroad in May 1686, ostensibly to drink the water at Spa but he may have been anxious to quit the country for political reasons. CSP Dom. 1686–7, p. 446. It is unclear when he returned home but his name appears on the various parliamentary lists of 1687–8 as an opponent of the king’s policies. His name was included among those expected to be prepared to stand bail for one of the Seven Bishops in June but he was unable to attend the trial, being called away to attend to his pregnant daughter-in-law. Bodl. Tanner, 28, f. 76; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, iv. 284. In November he was one of those to subscribe the petition calling for a free Parliament. Present at the meetings of the provisional government held between 21 and 25 Dec., Paget undoubtedly supported William of Orange’s invasion, though he may at first have favoured the accession of Princess Mary alone. Bodl. ms Eng. hist. d. 307, ff. 12–13; Kingdom without a King, 124, 153, 158, 165. According to some sources, in the debates of 24 Dec. he proposed that the princess should be proclaimed queen, arguing that once that was done a Parliament could be summoned, but George Savile, marquess of Halifax, recorded the contribution differently: according to him, Paget recommended that the prince should summon a Parliament. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 235; Dalrymple, Mems. ii. 262–3; Add. 75366, 24 Dec. 1688.

Paget took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, following which he was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. By the end of the month he had altered his initial position and he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary jointly king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and entered his dissent when it was resolved not to do so. On 6 Feb. he voted to concur with the Commons again, supporting the declaration that the throne was ‘vacant’. Two days later Paget was nominated one of the managers of the conference for declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. Later that month, on 18 Feb., he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for preventing disputes about the sitting of this Parliament. On 5 Mar. he was again nominated to a conference for assisting the king. On the same day he reported from the committee concerning papists and on 6 Mar. reported on the bill for removing papists from London. On 23 Mar. Paget entered his protest at the resolution to reject a proviso to the bill for abrogating the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, extending the time for taking the sacramental test and for permitting the sacrament to be taken in any Protestant church. On 28 Mar. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the bill for removing papists.

In March 1689 Paget was rewarded for his loyalty to the new regime with his appointment as lord lieutenant of Staffordshire in place of the Catholic Walter Aston, 3rd Baron Aston [S]. The following month, he was appointed ambassador to Vienna, being granted £500 for his equipage and a pension of £5 a day for his ordinary expenses. CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 71. Some delay followed before he embarked on his mission and in the meantime he remained active in the House. In a vote suggestive of his continuing belief in the reality of the Popish Plot, in May he voted in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. The same month he was nominated one of the reporters at each of the three conferences held to consider the additional poll bill, and on 27 May he reported on the bill to suspend the habeas corpus act. On 20 June he was again named a manager of the conference considering the bill for enabling the commissioners of the great seal. He reported on the bill for the college of physicians on 4 July. On 25 July he was named one of the reporters of the conference for the tea and coffee duty bill and two days later he was named to the second conference on the same measure. On 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Oates’s perjury judgments. He then entered his protest at the resolution to do so. On 2 Aug. he reported from the committee on the bill to repeal the act against multiplying gold and silver.

Paget finally left England in September 1689, embarking on a diplomatic career that would keep him abroad almost without interruption for the ensuing 14 years. CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 246; Add. 72517, ff. 27–28. ‘Normally reserved and quiet, but with an irascible temper’, he proved to be a capable diplomat. A.C. Wood, Hist. Levant Company, 131–2. During his lengthy absence from England the vast proportion of the family interest and estates fell under the control of his son, Henry Paget, (later earl of Uxbridge). HP Commons, 1690–1715, v. 56.

By November 1689, Paget had reached Augsburg, where he complained of his poor treatment at court. HMC Finch, iii. 431. He found the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church within the Empire stifling and complained that:

I am now in a place where ecclesiastical power is so extremely great, that no person (that is not of their opinions) can be looked upon with any common civility … and therefore you may suppose negotiations go on slowly and heavily, while their priests are continually buzzing in their ears passive obedience to Mother Church which forbids all converse and sincerity of dealings with hereticks … Friends and Rivals in the East ed. A. Hamilton et al. 72.

In August 1690 he sought leave to return to England for a while, believing that there was little likelihood of business over the summer but his request was clearly ignored. HMC Finch, ii. 399. In December 1691 it was rumoured that he was to be recalled, but the successive deaths of two ambassadors to the Ottoman Porte led to his appointment to Constantinople in August 1692. Following a brief sojourn in London during the summer, Paget once more set out for his embassy in September. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 321, 485, 527, 552, 556; HMC Finch, iv. 242; Verney ms mic. M636/46, J. to Sir R. Verney 30 July 1692; Add. 70116, A. to Sir E. Harley, 30 July 1692; CSP Dom. 1691–2, p. 434. In November he was allowed £500 for his equipage and a salary of £10 a day until his arrival at Constantinople, after which his expenses were to be paid by the Levant Company. His allowance was set at £2,500 p.a. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 491, 618; CSP Dom. 1691–2, p. 494.

Paget finally reached Belgrade in January 1693 and then proceeded to Adrianople (modern-day Edirne), where his behaviour ‘was greatly admired by the Turks’. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 7; HMC Downshire, i. 422. During his long years at the Ottoman court, he developed good relations with his hosts and concentrated on the building of an ambassadorial palace with a chapel based on St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Wood, Levant Company, 224. By contrast, his relationship with the Dutch emissaries already ensconced at the court proved to be far less harmonious and rapidly broke down.

Reports that Paget had died at his post reached England in October 1694. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 382. These were rapidly shown to be erroneous but by the beginning of 1695 the extent of his financial difficulties was becoming generally known. Matthew Prior^‡ noted that Paget’s secretary was more complimentary towards Robert Sutton, 2nd Baron Lexington, than he was towards his own master, ‘a sign in whose house bread and beer is most plentiful’. Lexington Pprs. 47. The death of the grand seignior and succession of the new sultan, Mustapha, left the negotiations in a state of some uncertainty. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 451; Lexington Pprs. 68. Paget thought that the new sultan would not be inclinable to peace and concluded that the new regime was eager to try its hand on campaign and that he saw ‘little hopes of doing any good this year’. Add. 46540, ff. 66–67. There appear to have been underhand efforts to displace Paget early in 1695, though Leeds (as Danby had since become) assured him of his support and wrote to caution his erstwhile opponent that:

As I was always confident there could not be any just complaint made against your lordship’s conduct in your station, so neither have I heard of any but by whispers, which does the more justify the prudence of your acting since it shows a malice without a foundation to support it … SOAS, Paget pprs. PP ms 4, bdle 26, f. 57.

Whatever the source of the rumours attempting to destabilize Paget’s position in Turkey, in May 1695 it was widely expected that he would be replaced at the Porte by Sir Cyril Wych^‡. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 476; HP Commons, 1690–1715, v. 932. In the midst of his efforts to secure a peace between the Turks and the Empire, Paget struggled to secure the expected funds from the Levant Company. In January 1696 he was assured by Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, that the king had ordered his ‘bill of extraordinaries to be allowed’ and that he would not oblige him ‘to continue longer in Turkey than you are willing to stay there’. Paget pprs. PP ms 4, box 4, bdle 26, f. 55.

Paget’s dissatisfaction with his post stemmed largely from the continual battle he was forced to wage with the Levant Company over payment of his expenses. By March 1696 he was experiencing severe financial difficulties. He complained that:

The company continue their unkindness, I hope it proceeds not from any occasion I may have given for it, or because I had the honour to be named for, and placed in, this employment by his majesty’s order, but only from a narrowness of spirit, that possesses some of that numerous assembly, which makes them unwilling to appear civil, lest they should thereby be engaged in a greater expense than they would be at. Eg. 918, ff. 29–30.

Paget’s continuing poor relations with his employers led to renewed expectations in April 1697 that he would be replaced, this time by Sir James Rushout^‡, ‘an old, rich, unhealthy gentleman’. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 208; HMC Bath, iii. 109. Rushout was formally nominated his successor in January 1698 but died the following month before he could take up the post. Still eager to see Paget replaced, the Levant Company again applied to the king for a new ambassador to be nominated. CSP Dom. 1698, p. 112. Charles Berkeley, then styled Lord Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), whose father was a governor of the Levant Company, was named as Rushout’s successor but refused to accept the mission. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 464; Northants. RO, Montagu (Boughton) mss 47/176; Paget pprs. PP ms 4, box 4, bdle 26, f. 80. By September Paget was complaining that he was £5,500 out of pocket and towards the end of the year it was reported that the king had at last ‘taken notice of the difficulties’ he was experiencing. Add. 8880, ff. 94–96; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 2, box 2, folder 42, no. L11, 14 Nov. 1698.

Besides his financial problems, the failure to appoint a new ambassador meant that it was left to Paget to steer through the peace treaty between the Ottomans and Empire at Karlowitz. C. Heywood, ‘An undiplomatic Anglo-Dutch dispute at the Porte’, in Friends and Rivals in the East, 61. His achievement gained him considerable plaudits from both the grand seignior and the grand vizier, who appealed to the king not to recall him. Paget pprs, PP Ms 4, box 4, bdle 26, f. 76; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 492. In spite of their request, in December 1700 the king consented to Paget’s pleas to be allowed to return (and the Levant Company’s earnest desire that he be replaced) and nominated Robert Sutton, nephew of Paget’s colleague at Vienna, Lexington, to assume the position. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 718.

Having at last secured his recall, it still took Paget a further two and a half years to reach home. Arriving in Holland in September, he was promptly despatched back to Vienna and in December he was sent to the court of Bavaria to undertake a further diplomatic mission. It was thus not until April 1703 that he finally reached England, having narrowly avoided disaster when the fleet in which he was travelling from Rotterdam was attacked by privateers. Ibid. v. 210, 252–3, 287; Daily Courant, 15 Apr. 1703. With him travelled a group of students whom he had recruited for Benjamin Woodroffe’s ‘Greek College’ at Oxford (based at Gloucester Hall). Woodroffe’s aim was closer relations between the Anglican Church and the Orthodox communion. Paget was ostensibly sympathetic to the scheme but was perhaps equally interested in the notion of training interpreters for the diplomatic legations in the Levant. Oxoniensia, xix. 97, 101, 109. On 22 Apr. he took his seat in the House. His appointment as lord lieutenant of Staffordshire was confirmed and he resumed regular attendance of the Lords once more, being present for 56 per cent of all sitting days for the second session of the Parliament. In November Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, noted him as being someone ‘to be depended upon this year that was absent’ on the question of occasional conformity and on 14 Dec. Paget duly voted against the bill. On 18 Jan. 1704 he reported from the committee considering the Awdley estate bill, which was resolved as being fit to pass.

Paget took his seat in the next session on 25 Oct. 1704, following which he was present on approximately 66 per cent of all sitting days. He refused a new diplomatic appointment to Vienna in January 1705, his rejection of the post reputedly because of the ministry’s refusal to offer him an earldom. On 27 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the heads of a joint conference to be held with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men. On 12 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the militia bill and the following day to that concerning amendments to the militia bill.

Making reference to Paget’s local rivalry with his Staffordshire neighbour, John Leveson Gower, Baron Gower, Paget’s brother-in-law, Henry Ashurst^‡, suggested to him that Paget ‘put in … to be Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if it were for nothing else but to set that lord down that refused to pay your lordship a common civility at Stafford’. Staffs. RO, Paget pprs. D603/K/3/6, Ashurst to Paget, 6 Jan. 1705. Paget brought his interest to bear on behalf of John Pershall^‡ at Stafford in March 1705 but the influence of the Foleys and Chetwynds kept any other contenders at bay. Herefs. RO, Foley mss. box E12/F/IV/BE, Paget to William Green, 24 Mar. 1705; HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 539. In April Paget was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He returned to the House for the 1705 Parliament on 25 Oct. but his level of attendance declined and he was only present on approximately 43 per cent of sitting days. His attendance then declined markedly in 1707, with him present on only 19 days during the second session, though he was named one of the reporters of the conference concerning the Fornhill and Stony Stratford highways bill on 27 March. This was an innovative bill that created one of the first turnpike trusts, and Paget’s involvement may have reflected his continuing wish to nurse his interest in Buckinghamshire. His attendance remained lacklustre and he was present for just 30 days of the first Parliament of Great Britain (approximately 27 per cent of the whole session).

Paget was categorized as a Whig in a list of peers and their party affiliations in May 1708, though the additional designation ‘+’ is of uncertain significance. Between November 1708 and April 1709 he attended the House on a mere six occasions. Despite this, Paget’s local interest in Staffordshire continued to be significant and in July 1709 some blamed him and the Foleys for the exclusion of Henry Vernon^‡ and Bryan Broughton^‡ from the commission of the peace, though Paget in turn blamed their removal on James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 532. His attendance in Parliament improved only slightly during the heated debates surrounding the Sacheverell trial. Present for approximately 28 per cent of all sitting days in the session, in March 1710 he found Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. In October that year he was noted as being an opponent of Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford. In December 1711, Paget was forecast as likely to be in favour of presenting the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. The same month he was thought a probable opponent of permitting Hamilton to take his seat in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon. Paget sat for the final time on 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the new session. The following day he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, which was vacated by the close of the session.

Paget died on 26 Feb. 1713 at his house in Bloomsbury Square. In his will of April 1711 he attempted to steer as much of his property away from his heir as possible. The reason may have been political. Henry Paget, 8th Baron Paget and later earl of Uxbridge, was allied to Robert Harley. He already possessed a peerage in his own right, having been created Baron Burton in January 1712 as one of Harley’s ‘dozen’. The 7th baron left his house in Bloomsbury to his housekeeper, Jane Peirce, and made substantial bequests to the children of his brother, Henry, as well as gifts of money to friends and retainers totalling in all nearly £2,000. Wentworth Pprs. 322; PROB 11/532.