John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester (ca. 1598 – 5 March 1675), styled Lord John Paulet until 1621 and Lord St John from 1621 to 1628 was third but eldest surviving son of William Paulet and his successor as 5th Marquess of Winchester.
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He kept terms at Exeter College, Oxford, but as a Roman Catholic could not matriculate. He sat for St Ives from 1620 to 1622. Staying away to recover his family fortune for most of the 1630s, he returned and presented himself to court and the king in 1639. The second Marquess and the Queen became firm friends thereafter, and therefore his chief seat, Basing House, was the great resort of Queen Henrietta Maria's friends in south-west England.
On the outbreak of the English Civil War he fortified and garrisoned Basing House and held it for Charles I during 1643 and 1644, the siege of Basing House, notwithstanding an attempt of his youngest brother, Lord Edward Paulet, to deliver it up to the enemy, from August 1643, to 16 October 1645, when in the general decline of the Royal cause, it was taken by storm, after a determined defence, by Oliver Cromwell. Paulet was subsequently renowned as a great loyalist.
The Marquis was made prisoner with such of his garrison as survived the fight; ten pieces of ordnance and much ammunition were also taken by the victors, as Oliver Cromwell himself, who directed the assault, wrote to the Speaker.[1]
He was committed to the Tower of London on a charge of high treason in 1645, where he remained a long time; his property sequestered and partially sold; suffered to go unrecompensated at the Restoration of the Monarchy, but regained his lands.[2]
He retired to Englefield House in Berkshire - which was a wedding gift from his second marriage to Lady Honora de Burgh in the early 1630s. He was succeeded, in 1674, by his eldest son, Charles, 6th Marquis, and 1st Duke of Bolton.[1]
He married,
He married,
He married,
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Preceded by William Paulet |
Marquess of Winchester 1628–1674 |
Succeeded by Charles Paulet |
Baron St John of Basing (writ in acceleration) 1624–1674 |