Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/92

Paule petition against him in parliament, asserting that the latter ‘would be found more corrupt than the late lord chancellor,’ i.e. Bacon (ib. cxxii. 20, 12 July 1621).

In the following year he declared, in a letter to Buckingham from Lambeth, against the levy of a benevolence without parliamentary sanction, and suggested in place of it a tax of 1d. or 2d. in the shilling on necessary commodities (ib. cxxviii., 25 March 1622). In 1623, 1624, and 1628 he was included, as a friend of Buckingham, with others in the commission for the examination of the duke's estates and revenue. Before 1625 Paule received the post of principal registrar to the high commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, and to his majesty's judges delegates (see State Papers under date 16 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1625, clxxxii. 1). He was returned for Bridgnorth for the parliament of 1625. Later in the same year he wrote from Twickenham to inform Secretary Conway in a calm constitutional tone of the opposition in Middlesex and Surrey to the raising of money on privy seals (State Papers, Dom. Car. I, viii. 34, 24 Oct. 1625). He was returned for the succeeding parliament of 1627–8 as member for Bridgnorth, along with Sir Richard Sheldon or Shilton [q. v.], solicitor-general. In 1629 he resigned his post of chief clerk in the king's bench (ib. Dom. dclii. 27). In 1631 he successfully petitioned the king (17 March) for ‘a dispensation to exempt him from shrievalty and other services, in consideration of his infirmities, being sixty-eight years of age’ (ib. Dom. Car. I, clxxxvi. 104, 17 March 1631).

Paule died shortly before 16 April 1635. After much dispute, John Oldbury became registrar to the high commission court, in succession to Paule, on condition of paying to Paule's son George, the king's ward, and to Dame Rachel Paule, the widow, 40l. per annum (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. p. 79 b). Subsequently one Francis Paule obtained the office, and much litigation between him and Dame Rachel followed until 1645.

Paule wrote: ‘The Life of the most reverend and religious Prelate, John Whitgift, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, written by Sir George Paule, Knt., Comptroller of his Grace's Household,’ London, 1612, 4to. Republished 1699, London, ‘to which is added a treatise intituled Conspiracy for pretended Reformation,’ by Richard Cosin [q. v.], 1591. The ‘Life’ only was reprinted in C. Wordsworth's ‘Ecclesiastical Biography,’ 1878, iv. 311–401.

[State Papers, Dom. ubi supra; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. pp. 33, 47, 6th Rep. pp. 79, 87; Brydges's Restituta, i. 110, 193; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 46; Strype's Whitgift, ubi supra; Whitgift's Works (Parker Soc.), vols. iii. vi. xi.; Metcalfe's Book of Knights, p. 158; Return of Members of Parliament.]  PAULET. [See also .]

PAULET or POULET, AMIAS or AMYAS (d. 1538), soldier, was son of Sir William Paulet of Hinton St. George, Somerset, by Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Deneland of Hinton St. George. Connected with his family were the Paulets of Nunney Castle, Somerset. The common ancestor, Sir John Paulet of Paulet, lived in the time of Edward III. John Paulet (d. 1470?) of Nunney had, by Eleanor, daughter and coheiress of Robert Roos of Gedney and Irton, Lincolnshire, a son, (fl. 1500), who was a commander at the battle of Blackheath in 1497 (cf. Rot. Parl. vi. 541), and was made a knight of the Bath at the marriage of Prince Arthur on 14 Nov. 1501. He married Alice, daughter of Sir William Paulet of Hinton St. George, and by her had, among other children, William, marquis of Winchester [q. v.], who is separately noticed (, Peerage, ed. Brydges, ii. 369;, Knights, p. 35).

Amyas Paulet was brought up a Lancastrian. He was attainted after Buckingham's rebellion in 1483, and duly restored in 1485 (Rot. Parl. vi. 246, 273); on 5 Nov. 1485 he was appointed sheriff for Somerset and Dorset, and he was frequently in the commission of the peace. He was a very active and officious country gentleman, and there is doubtless truth in the tradition that when Wolsey came to take possession of the benefice of Lymington in Hampshire, Paulet clapped him in the stocks (, Wolsey, ed. Singer, i. 6). He was knighted on 16 June 1487, after the battle of Stoke. When Perkin Warbeck's rebellion had failed, he was employed in collecting the fines of those implicated. He was one of the west-country gentlemen who had to meet Catherine of Arragon at Crewkerne on 17 Oct. 1501, when she was on her way to London.

In Henry VIII's time he began a military career, and commanded twenty-five men in the expedition to the north of France in 1513. But he seems to have been called to the bar, for in 1521 he was treasurer of the Middle Temple. Wolsey, now chancellor, in revenge for the indignity which Paulet had once put upon him, ordered Paulet not to quit London without leave; and so he had to live in the Middle Temple for five or six years. To propitiate Wolsey, when the gateway was restored, he placed the cardinal's badges prominently over