Lord St John

The title which William Paulet received on 9th March 1539 was one to which he had a remote ancestral claim on his father's side, but through the female line and going back to the early fifteenth century. ¹ His was a new creation, but this background explains his choice of title. The ceremony at Westminster seems to have been attended by the entire court; at least the three new barons were presented with a lengthy list of rewards which they were expected to find, ranging from £15 for the officers of Arms to 6s 8d for the footmen. The whole bill came to over £32. ² For the time being Lord St John was without a household office, and thus no longer an ex officio councillor, but he continued to exercise his other offices, particularly that of Master of the Wards. Within a matter of days, we are told that Henry had decided to fortify his kingdom and Paulet became busied about this new emergency. Francis and Charles had agreed a ten year truce at Nice in the previous June and by December 1538 the pope was sufficiently encouraged to make a partial promulgation of the Bull of excommunication against the English King. The word crusade was being uttered in Rome and on 12th January 1539 the Emperor and the French King had signed an agreement at Toledo not to enter into any fresh alliance with the heretic English. David Beaton was created a cardinal and sent to Scotland to motivate James V for the cause, while Reginald Pole appeared again in Northern Europe, like a bird of ill-omen, expressly charged to bring Charles and Francis to the point of open hostilities with Henry. ³ It appeared that England was in great danger. Calais and Guisnes were fortified, the garrison at Berwick reinforced, ships were stayed in harbour and musters were held. In a sense, Henry was not intimidated. Monasteries continued to go down, their stones being used for the new fortifications, and the last shrines were suppressed, but the fear of war was, for several months, real and compelling. Before the end of March Paulet was despatched with the Earl of Southampton to survey the Solent and the Isle of Wight and, as a result of their report, several new fortifications were created. ⁴ In the same month he was helping to conduct the musters 48in Hampshire and these must have been the proceedings which he visited Cromwell to report in the middle of April.