241; Lansd. MSS. 34 art. 7, 62 art. 50; Murdin's State Papers, pp. 439–531; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Eliz. and Scottish Ser.; Strype's Annals, iii. 61, 98, 136, 217, 247, Append. pp. 27, 31; Turnbull's Letters of Mary Stuart, pp. 104, 105, 130; Tytler's Scotland, 1864, iv. 114; Wright's Elizabeth, ii. 256.]
PAGET, WILLIAM, first Baron Paget of Beaudesert (1505–1563), born in 1505, at Wednesbury it is said, was son of William Paget, a sergeant-at-mace of the city of London. His father was connected with an old Staffordshire family, but this seems to have been discovered after Paget's death, and his low birth was often objected to by the courtiers. He was educated at St. Paul's School under William Lily [q. v.], and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, presumably during the mastership of Stephen Gardiner [q. v.] He must have given early proof of his ability, for he was one of those supported at the university by members of the Boleyn family. He is said, while at Cambridge, to have been an earnest protestant, to have distributed books by Luther and other Germans, and to have read Melanchthon's ‘Rhetoric’ openly in Trinity Hall (Strype, Memorials, I. i. 430). But it is not probable that he was earnest in matters of religion at any time, and it is not likely that Gardiner, who, as Wolsey's secretary, had been engaged in persecuting heretics in 1526, would have allowed any protestant lecturing to go on in his college. He does not seem to have taken any degree at Cambridge, but he remained a good friend to the university, of which he was afterwards high steward. In 1547, when involved in a dispute with the townspeople, the university appealed to him for help (Strype, Cranmer, p. 238), and this no doubt was the occasion of his being appointed, in February 1547–8, a commissioner to settle the matter. He was also, in November 1548, appointed one of the visitors of the university, and was present at the disputation in the summer of 1549, when Grindal, then a young man, argued about transubstantiation (Strype, Grindal, p. 6, and Cheke, p. 40).
On leaving the university he was taken into the household of Gardiner, who sent him to study in Paris for a time, and received him again when he returned. In 1528 he was ill of the plague. In 1529, obviously through Gardiner's influence, he was sent to France to collect opinions from the universities on the subject of the divorce. In 1532 he became clerk of the signet, and the same year was sent out to furnish Cranmer, then ambassador to the emperor, with instructions as to what Henry was prepared to do against the Turks who had recently invaded Hungary (Strype, Cranmer, p. 16). A few months later he appears to have been sent on a mission to the elector of Saxony, and in 1534 he was again abroad to confer with the protestant princes of Germany (for his instructions see Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, vi. 148). He went by way of France to Germany in 1537 with Christopher Mont [q. v.] to induce the Smalcaldic league to reject the pope's overtures. On 18 Oct. 1537 he was knighted. When the marriage with Anne of Cleves had been arranged, Paget, who could no doubt speak German, was appointed her secretary in 1539. On 10 Aug. 1540 he was sworn in as clerk to the privy council (Acts of the Privy Council, vii. 4), and in the same year his office of clerk of the signet was secured to him for life. On 1 June 1541 he had a grant of arms. On 24 Sept. 1541 he was sent as an ambassador to France in order to perform the delicate service of explaining the sudden fall of Catherine Howard, but he seems to have given satisfaction, as on 13 Dec. 1541 the council increased his emoluments by ten shillings a day (ib. vii. 268, 283, 352). He was promoted on his return, becoming a privy councillor and one of the secretaries of state on 23 April 1543, and clerk of parliament on 19 May 1543; he now resigned his clerkship to the privy council.
As secretary of state Paget was brought into very close relations with the king, and for the closing years of the reign he and the Earl of Hertford, to whom he strongly attached himself, were probably Henry's chief advisers. On 26 June 1544 Paget, Wriothesley, and Suffolk were commissioned to treat with the Earl of Lennox as to Scottish affairs and the marriage of Lennox with Margaret, the king's niece. He went to Boulogne with the king in the same year, and took part in the subsequent negotiations, and with John (afterwards Sir John) Mason [q. v.] he received the office of master of the posts within and without the realm. In 1545 he took part in the new negotiations with the German protestants. He made Edward, prince of Wales, a present of a sandbox in 1546, and was one of those who visited Anne Askew [q. v.] in the Tower, and tried to change her opinions. As Henry grew older, he relied greatly on Paget. He consulted him about his will, left him 300l., and appointed him one of the governors of the young prince during his minority. Just before and just after Henry's death on 28 Jan. 1546–1547, Hertford had conferences with Paget (Strype, Memorials, ii. i. 17), and Paget gave him advice which Hertford declined to follow. Three days after Henry's death he read aloud part of Henry's will in parlia-
