POWLETT, Thomas (c.1588-1644), of Bridy, Burton Bradstock, Dorset

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.12 Hutchins, ii. 115, 281; A. Oswald, Country Houses of Dorset, 82-3. The inquisition post mortem taken after his father’s death omitted by carelessness or design, most of his property, and following further inquiries Powlett was obliged to pay £154 to the Exchequer. His appointment as second-in-command to Sir William Bampfield* at Sandsfoot castle was of little financial benefit to him, as his salary was merely 9d. a day.13 C142/536/3, 8; 142/537/74; Procs. Dorset Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Field Club, xxxv. 31. The owner of a house in Weymouth, Powlett entered into a privateering partnership with a local merchant in 1626-7, employing two ships of 30 and 80 tons respectively, the Hopewell and the Dragon.14 Dorset RO, WYP/AD1/3, f. 58; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 289, 294.

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.15 CD 1628, ii. 429-30.

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.16 Hutchins, ii. 111; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 132; Dorset RO, mss 9783, 9876, 9879. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Powlett took up arms for the king despite his advancing years, and died in May 1644 of wounds received during a failed assault on Lyme Regis, Dorset. Two of his sons were also slain. His remaining son was living at St. Bartholomew’s, London in 1660, when he sold his title to Melplash to Sir Andrew Henley† for £100.17 Bayley, 151; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 377; Dorset RO, ms 9787.