PAULET, John

John Paulet descended from a middle-ranking knightly family from Somerset, whose parliamentary traditions dated back to Richard II’s reign, when his grandfather had served as a knight of the shire for Devon. Although the family did not escape the demographic disasters which wiped out many other gentry lines in the course of the later Middle Ages, the Paulets were prolific enough to ensure their survival into the modern period, when they were destined for considerable political prominence and elevation to the higher ranks of the peerage. In March 1413 the senior male line of the family became extinct by the deaths within a few days of each other of John and Thomas, the under-age sons of Sir John (d.c.1400),9 CCR, 1413-19, pp. 28-29; CFR, xiv. 30; CIPM, xx. 121-6; SC6/830/32. the later MP’s uncle, but the Paulets continued to be represented by Sir John’s two younger brothers, Thomas and William, and their descendants. While the family estates now fell to Thomas Paulet, the elder of the two, it was left to the younger, William, to make his line’s fortunes by contracting advantageous marriages for himself and his son. This he did, initially by a marriage to Eleanor, sole daughter of Philip de la Mere of Nunney. In the first instance it was by no means certain that the marriage would prove profitable, for when Eleanor died in April 1413, her family estates were still firmly in the hands of her brother Sir Elias, who, although childless, was sufficiently vigorous to serve as sheriff that year, and could thus still be expected to produce an heir. In the event, however, Sir Elias died without issue, and his valuable family lands, including the Wiltshire manor of Fisherton Delamere and the family seat and castle of Nunney in Somerset passed to his nephew, John Paulet.10 C139/108/22; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 66-67.

This acquisition marked a turning point in his career. Paulet’s father was a busy lawyer who by 1415 was of sufficient standing in his profession to be called to take up the rank of a serjeant-at-law.11 CCR, 1413-19, p. 216. He was frequently appointed to royal commissions, served as escheator, and for many years occupied a regular place on the quorum of the county bench.12 E101/586/10, m. 2. Having acquired an estate of his own, John was now able to move out of his father’s shadow and assume his own place in county society. Before long he had attracted the attention of the leading landowner in his region, the recently ennobled Walter, Lord Hungerford†. Over the course of the first decade of Henry VI’s reign, Hungerford – a trusted associate of Henry V and subsequently of John, duke of Bedford – had increasingly become the dominant magnate in south-western England, particularly in Somerset and Wiltshire, where many of his own estates were concentrated. Along with a circle of friends and kinsmen which included wealthy local landowners like Sir William Bonville* and (Sir) Philip Courtenay* of Powderham, he dominated the political scene, influencing aspects of local rule such as the selection of sheriffs and in some instances the return of MPs.

It is uncertain how Paulet came to be drawn into the Hungerford circle, but in the light of his relative youth and inexperience there can be little doubt that he owed his return to Parliament in the autumn of 1427 as one of the knights of the shire for Wiltshire to Hungerford patronage: during the first session his parliamentary companion, William Darell*, Lord Hungerford’s under treasurer at the Exchequer, was appointed to the technically incompatible office of sheriff of the county, in which Paulet would subsequently succeed him. Paulet, for his part, made use of his presence at Westminster to secure a grant for a term of six years of the Somerset manor of King’s Brompton, part of the escheated estates of Sir Peter Bessels*, who had died childless two years previously.13 CFR, xv. 204; E159/204, brevia Hil. rot. 12. In the event, this grant proved somewhat of a poisoned chalice, as it had been Bessels’s intention that the manor should be given to Barlinch priory, and litigation over the issue with Thomas Coventre I*, one of Bessels’s feoffees (and a fellow Member of the Parliament of 1427) would dog Paulet to the end of his life.14 E159/213, brevia Hil. rot. 9; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 217.

Increasingly, Paulet could regard himself as one of Hungerford’s more important clients. By the end of 1428 he was named among the baron’s feoffees, and he subsequently featured regularly among those who attested his deeds and held his lands in trust.15 CPR, 1422-9, p. 526; CCR, 1422-9, p. 459; 1429-35, pp. 43-44, 50-51, 53, 54, 55-56, 163-4, 232, 248, 252. Like many other members of Hungerford’s circle he assumed an important place in the government of Somerset and Wiltshire. His shrievalty of Wiltshire was extended beyond the customary year into the spring of 1430, and just nine months later he was reappointed to serve in the shrievalty of Somerset and Dorset. When not serving as sheriff, Paulet was periodically appointed to royal commissions, and from the summer of 1432 he served on the Wiltshire bench. In December 1432 he sued out letters of attorney to ensure the smooth running of his affairs while he himself went to France in Lord Hungerford’s retinue,16 DKR, xlviii. 287. but if he ever set out on this expedition he returned to England before long, for in the late spring of 1433 he again secured election to Parliament, this time as a knight of the shire for Somerset. Once again, while at Westminster he pursued his own interests. His original grant of King’s Brompton had come to an end, and while the Commons were in session he secured its renewal for a further seven years.17 One of his sureties on this occasion was Thomas Giffard*, MP for Barnstaple: CFR, xvi. 176.

Throughout this period Paulet was preoccupied with the extension of his own landholdings, and by the end of 1427 he had contracted a prestigious marriage to a lady of considerable standing, the grand-daughter of barons on both sides of her family. She was also an heiress, for her father had died in the previous summer, leaving her, her sister, the wife of John Orell, and her nephew John, son of a third sister, Joan, by Thomas Bonville*, as joint heirs to the substantial estates of their grandfather, Thomas Poynings, Lord St. John of Basing (who in the event would die within two years of the marriage). The lands which then came to Paulet and his wife centred on the Hampshire manors of Basing (alone said to be worth more than £20 p.a.), Bromley, Abbotstone and Ludshut, as well as further holdings elsewhere in the same county, albeit temporarily diminished by the dower of Constance’s mother, Eleanor, which remained in the hands of her second husband, Sir Godfrey Hilton†, for almost three decades after Lord St. John’s death.18 CFR, xv. 300; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 8, 275; C139/108/22, m. 4; W. Suss. RO, Goodwood Estate archs., Goodwood/E274-5, 676.

It was about this time that Paulet was admitted to the prestigious fraternity of the London merchant tailors,19 Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 246. but the focus of his life remained firmly in the south-west, where he frequently attested his neighbours’ property deeds, or acted as a feoffee of their lands.20 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 36, 50, 52; CFR, xv. 223, 287; C146/9794. He maintained close contacts with even his more distant blood relatives, including the Creedys of Sandford (his paternal grandmother had been the sister and eventual heir of Adam Creedy†, MP for the city of Exeter in 1388),21 CCR, 1435-41, p. 35; Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser. ix. 142; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Wales Univ. Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 347. and Bigburys of Bigbury (his first cousin, Elizabeth Paulet, had married William Bigbury, and in February 1432 Paulet and John Fortescue* had been granted wardship of the latter’s coheirs).22 CFR, xvi. 84; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 63.

The year 1436 was ostensibly an auspicious one for Paulet. His father, William, was ageing, and by mid August was sufficiently frail to take the precaution of making a will. Before the end of the year, John himself had been knighted, in circumstances which are now obscure. Yet if he now harboured reasonable hopes of succeeding to the family estates, these were soon to be dashed, for early in 1437 he himself fell seriously ill and died on 11 Jan. at North Petherton, having made a will just a week earlier. In accordance with his instructions he was buried in St. Katherine’s church at Nunney in a tomb which still survives. He left bequests to the parish churches of Nunney, Fisherton Delamere and North Petherton, of which he had been patron, as well as the Dominican house at Bridgwater, making provision for the health of his soul and that of his father, who had evidently predeceased him by a few weeks. Five of his servants were remembered by name, each of them receiving the sum of 20s. Among Paulet’s executors were his wife, Constance, and the lawyer Alexander Hody* (who was also named as one of William Paulet’s executors), while his old patron, Lord Hungerford, was made supervisor.23 PCC 23 Luffenham (PROB11/3, f. 182v); CFR, xvi. 298-300; C139/88/49; KB146/6/36/1; N. Pevsner, Buildings of Eng.: Bristol and N. Som. 239. The date of William Paulet’s death is uncertain, for his will was proved at the same time as that of his son, but he was certainly dead by 20 Jan. 1437, when a writ of diem clausit extremum was issued to the escheator of Som., and had probably died before 3 Jan., when John provided for his soul in his will.

Constance survived her husband until November 1442, having in the spring of 1439 (probably with Lord Hungerford’s assistance) contracted a second marriage to the Northamptonshire esquire Henry Green*. The considerable wealth which she commanded as an heiress and a widow is indicated by the substantial jointure that Green was required to grant to her. Equally, when Constance died little more than three years later, Green had no intention of giving up easily what he had so recently gained. On 16 Nov. 1442, two days before writs of diem clausit extremum ordering an inquiry into Constance’s landholdings were issued, Green and the chancellor, Bishop Stafford of Bath and Wells, purchased at the Exchequer a grant of custody of the principal Paulet manor of Nunney during the minority of the heir. A subsequent inquisition taken in Hampshire found that Green and Constance had had a daughter, Anne, and that he was thus entitled to tenure of her inheritance by courtesy of England, but nothing is otherwise heard of this girl, and it is possible that the jurors were colluding with Green in a deliberate attempt to defraud the Crown, which had custody of the 14-year-old Paulet heir, another John.24 CCR, 1435-41, p. 250; CFR, xvii. 232; C139/108/22; DL37/10/2. In the longer term this younger John was able to recover his inheritance,25 C67/53, m. 30; C139/108/22. and he would later make an important marriage in his own right to Eleanor, younger daughter and ultimately one of the coheirs of Sir Robert Roos*.26 Eleanor’s first husband had been Humphrey, yr. s. of John Sutton, Lord Dudley, but the marriage appears to have remained childless, as her lands descended to her son by Paulet: Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser. ix. 145; Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 330; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 368. Two of their children went on to make marriages designed to reunite the two branches of the Paulet family: their daughter Margaret married her cousin, Sir Amias Paulet†, while her eldest brother Sir John married Sir Amias’s sister Alice, a union resulting in no fewer than four sons, the eldest of whom was raised to a barony by Henry VIII, before being successively elevated to the earldom of Wiltshire and the marquisate of Winchester under Edward VI.27 Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser. ix. 144-5; Apostolic Penitentiary, ii (Canterbury and York Soc. civ), 1236-7.