PAULET, WILLIAM, third Marquis of Winchester (1535?–1598), son of John Paulet, second marquis, and grandson of William Paulet, first marquis [q. v.], was born before 1536 and knighted before 1559. He served as high sheriff for Hampshire in 1560, as joint commissioner of musters and joint lord-lieutenant for Dorset in 1569–70. Doyle says he became member of parliament for Dorset in 1571; but no parliament was elected or sat in that year, and Paulet's name does not appear in the official returns of the lower house in any other parliament. In 1572 he was summoned to the house of lords as Baron St. John, and on 4 Nov. 1576 he succeeded his father as third Marquis of Winchester. He was not satisfied with his father's will, and complained of the disposal of the family property due to the influence of his grandfather's widow, Winifrid (d. 1586). In 1580 he became lord-lieutenant of Dorset, and in October 1586 was one of the commissioners appointed to try Mary Queen of Scots; he was lord steward for her funeral on 1 Aug. 1587. In 1596 he was lord-lieutenant for Hampshire, and in 1597 first commissioner for ecclesiastical causes in the diocese of Winchester. He died on 24 Nov. 1598, having married, before 1560, Agnes, daughter of William, first lord Howard of Effingham [q. v.]; with her his relations were not entirely harmonious, and on one occasion it was only by the intercession of the queen that a reconciliation was effected (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1547–80, p. 534, &c.) He was succeeded by his eldest son William, fourth marquis, whose son John, fifth marquis, is separately noticed.
Paulet's claim to remembrance rests on a curious little work, entitled ‘The Lord Marques Idlenes: conteining manifold matter of acceptable devise, as sage sentences, prudent precepts, &c.,’ London, Arnold Hatfield, 1586, 4to; prefixed to it is a dedication to the queen and a remarkable acrostic of six Latin verses, which, says Collier, ‘must have cost the writer immense ingenuity in the composition;’ the first letters of the six lines form the word ‘regina,’ the last letters ‘nostra’ and the initials of the words in the last line ‘Angliæ.’ Copies of this edition are in the Bridgewater collection and in the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries, and Collier had heard of a fourth, but they are extremely rare. A second edition appeared in 1587, a copy of which is in the British Museum Library.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–98, passim; Cotton MS. Julius C. iii.; Peerages by Doyle, Brydges, and Collins; Collier's Bibliogr. Acc. of Early Engl. Lit. vol. i. p. xix, vol. ii. p. 132; Bodleian Cat.]
PAULET, Lord WILLIAM (1804–1893), field-marshal, fourth son of Charles Ingoldsby Paulet, thirteenth marquis of Winchester, and his wife Anne, second daughter of John Andrews of Shotney Hall, Northumberland, was born 7 July 1804. After being educated at Eton, where his name appears in the fifth form in the school lists of 1820, he was appointed ensign in the 85th light infantry on 1 Feb. 1821. On 23 Aug. 1822 he was made lieutenant in the 7th fusiliers, purchased an unattached company 12 Feb. 1825, and exchanged to the 21st fusiliers. On 10 Sept. 1830 he became major 68th light infantry, and lieutenant-colonel 21 April 1843, serving with the regiment at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, North America, and at home until 31 Dec. 1848, when he exchanged to half-pay unattached. Becoming brevet colonel 20 June 1854, he went to the Crimea as assistant adjutant-general of the cavalry division, under Lord Lucan, and was present at the Alma, Balaklava (where he was with Lord Lucan throughout the day, and had his hat carried off by a shot), Inkerman, and before Sevastopol. On 23 Nov. 1854 Lord Raglan appointed him to command ‘on the Bosphorus, at Gallipoli, and the Dardanelles,’ where the overcrowded hospitals, in which Miss Nightingale and her band of nurses had begun their labours three weeks before, were much in need of an experienced officer in chief command. This post was held by him until after the fall of Sevastopol, when he succeeded to the command of the light division in the Crimea, which he retained until the evacuation (C.B. medal and clasps, officer of the Legion of Honour, third class of the Medjidie, and Sardinian and Turkish medals).
Paulet was one of the first officers appointed to a command at Aldershot, where he commanded the 1st brigade from 1856 to 1860, becoming a major-general meanwhile on 13 June 1858. He commanded the south-western district, with headquarters at Portsmouth, from 1860 to 1865. He was made K.C.B. in 1865, and a lieutenant-general 8 Dec. 1867; was adjutant-general of the forces from 1865 to 1870, was made G.C.B. in 1870, general 7 Oct. 1874, and field-marshal 10 July 1886. After a short period as colonel 87th fusiliers, Paulet was appointed, on 9 April 1864, colonel of his old regiment, the 68th (now 1st Durham light infantry), in the welfare and interests of which he never ceased to exert his active influence. He died 10 May 1893.
