Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/67

 ment, and he played the leading part in the plot formed to set it aside (cf., Hist. of Church of England, iii. 392).

In the new reign Paget appears as the friend of the Protector, but he inclined to courses of greater moderation. He proposed a protectorate in the council. He had evidently carefully considered the state of England, and wrote to Somerset that for the time there was no religion in the country. His state paper on the foreign relations of England, written for the instruction of the council, also shows how well he could explain his views (it is printed in Memorials,  i. 87). His own position at once improved. He was made K.G. on 17 Feb. 1546–7, comptroller of the king's household, on 4 March 1546–7 a commissioner for determining the boundaries of Boulogne, and on 1 July 1547 chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His friendship for Somerset declared itself in several letters of warning as to the policy he was pursuing; one, dated 8 May 1549, forms Cotton MS. Tit. F. 3. On 8 May 1549 he was a commissioner to visit Oxford University, but he was not in favour of rigorous measures against the catholics. When the heresy commissions were issued, he disapproved, telling Somerset that to alter the state of a nation would take ten years' deliberation. Hence he gladly set off in June to Brussels to try and persuade the emperor to join with the English in an attack on France (cf., Memorials, i. 242–9). He was respected at the emperor's court; but the tumults in England, upon which he had a difficulty in placing a satisfactory construction, prevented anything from being done. A curious conversation, in which he took part, in the course of the negotiations respecting the prerogative of the French crown as compared with that of England or Germany, has been preserved (ib. p. 150). He advised a firmer course with the rebels than that which the Protector had taken, although his own brother was a leader in the western rising (cf., Hist. of Church of England, iii. 63–4). His negotiation with the emperor closed the same year, and he wrote a remarkable letter to Sir William Petre [q. v.] (‘Alas, Mr. Secretary, we must not think that heaven is here, but that we live in a world’) explaining his failure.

Paget, as a friend of Somerset, suffered a good deal for his sake. He remained with him during the revolution of October 1549, but none the less he was in communication with the lords of the opposite party, and showed them how Somerset might be captured (ib. iii. 153). On 3 Dec. 1549 he was created Baron Paget of Beaudesert, Staffordshire (Lords' Journals, i. 365). John Burcher, writing to Bullinger, 12 Dec. 1549, said he had been made president of Wales (3 Zurich Letters, p. 661); he also gained the London house of the bishop of Exeter, and other lands besides, but ceased to be comptroller. In January 1549–50 he had a commission to treat with the king of France. He was a witness against Gardiner in December, and Gardiner reproached him with having ‘neglected honour, faith, and honesty,’ and with having ‘shown himself of ingrate malice, desirous to hinder his former teacher and tutor, his former master and benefactor, to whom he owed his first advancement.’ In May 1551 he was appointed one of the lords-lieutenant for Staffordshire and Middlesex.

Paget had incurred the hatred of Warwick, who feared him, and the party opposed to Somerset hoped to ruin Paget and the Protector together. He was arrested and committed to the Fleet on 21 Oct. 1551 on a charge of conspiring against Warwick's life, but was removed to the Tower on 8 Nov. The charge was absurd. The murder was to have been carried out at Paget's house. But Paget had taken the part of the council against Somerset in many things; he had rebuked him for courting popularity, and he knew his weakness far too well to join in any such adventure with him. This probably every one recognised. Action was consequently taken against Paget on another ground. He had resigned his comptrollership when made a peer, but had kept his other appointments. He was now degraded from the order of the Garter, on 22 April 1552, on the ground of insufficient birth, really in order that he might make room for Lord Guilford Dudley. His accounts as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were inquired into, and he was found to have made large profits at the expense of the crown. On 16 June 1552 he was charged with his offences before the court of Star-chamber, and confessed, as he had already done before the council. It seems that he had sold timber for his own profit, and taken fines on renewing and granting leases. He was fined 6,000l., and all his lands and goods were placed at the king's disposal; Sir John Gates succeeded him in the chancellorship of the duchy, and the other courtiers hoped for a share in the spoils. John Ponet [q. v.] wrote tauntingly afterwards: ‘But what at length becommeth of our practising P.? He is committed to ward, his Garter with shame pulled from his legge, his Robe from his backe, his Coat Armour pulled downe, spurned out of Windsor Church, trod underfoot,’ &c. (Treatise of Politique Power, ed. 1642, p. 64). But Paget