suc. fa. 15 Sept. 1665 as 3rd Bar. POULETT
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 30 Apr. 1679
MP Som. 31 Mar. 1662–15 Sept. 1665
b. c.1642, 1st s. of John Poulett, 2nd Bar. Poulett by 1st w. educ. travelled abroad 1656. m. (1) lic. 17 Aug. 1663 (aged ‘about 22’), Essex, da. of Alexander Popham‡, of Littlecote, Wilts., 2da.; (2) lic. 15 July 1667, Lady Susan (d.1691),1 da. of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 1s. 2da.2 d. June 1679; will 29 May–14 June, pr. 2 Dec. 1679.3
Dep. lt. Som. 1666;4 jt. chief steward, bpric. Bath and Wells 1662–?d.;5 ld. lt. Dorset 1674–d.
Associated with: Hinton St George, Som.
Poulett’s succession to his father’s peerage in 1665 cut short the career he had begun in the Commons three years earlier. Now in his mid-twenties, he found himself master of a large and thriving west country estate, but unlike his father he was never as prominent or assiduous in undertaking official or governmental duty in his native county. There was, admittedly, less pressure from central government during the later 1660s to organize and regulate the militia, and only very occasionally did Poulett act with fellow deputy lieutenants and justices in relation to other matters, as, for example, an abortive recommendation in 1669 for the reincorporation of Taunton.6 In his hands, Hinton became a favoured place of resort for senior aristocrats and royalty; in 1667 he paid host to Cosimo di Medici, the heir of the grand duke of Tuscany, who left admiring descriptions of the mansion and gardens and of the adjacent park and forest.7
Poulett did not attend the brief session which sat during October 1665 but took his seat on the opening day of the next, on 18 Sept. 1666. He last attended on 23 Jan. 1667. In all, he was present on 46 days, nearly 52 per cent of the total and was named to the committee on Lady Arlington’s naturalization bill. He also attended on both days of the short session in July 1667. He was present on the opening day of the 1667–9 session (10 Oct.), being named on the following day to the committee of privileges and the committee on petitions (strangely, he was added to both again on 18 Nov. 1667). He attended on 37 days before the adjournment on 19 Dec., 72.5 per cent of the total, and was named to a further three committees. On 20 Nov. he registered a dissent in response to the Lords’ resolution not to agree with the Commons’ proposal to commit Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, without citing specific charges, along with other opponents of Clarendon.
When the session resumed in February 1668, Poulett first sat on the 10th. He attended in all on 27 days, just under 41 per cent of the total. He did not attend the opening of the 1669 session; he was absent from a call of the House on 26 Oct. and excused attendance at another call on 9 Nov., being ‘sick’. In all he was present on just four days at the end of November and beginning of December, 11 per cent of the total.
Poulett was absent throughout the 1670–1 session and was excused at the call of the House on 21 Feb. 1670. On 21 Mar. he chose to lodge his proxy with Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare, well known for his associations with the country opposition. Poulett was also absent from calls of the House on 14 Nov. 1670 (excused) and 10 Feb. 1671 (proxy). In July 1671 the king took a progress to the west, and was reported to be going on a visit to Hinton St George.8 Poulett was present when the House reconvened on 4 Feb. 1673, being named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He attended on 16 days of the session, 42 per cent of the total and was named to a further three committees. He did not attend the short session of October–November 1673. He missed the opening of the 1674 session and was excused from the call of the House on 12 Jan., first attending on the 23rd. He last attended on 16 Feb. when he took the oaths. He was present on 12 days of the session, 32 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation of 10 Nov. 1674.
At some stage during this period Poulett’s political sympathies shifted towards the court, a process in which the king’s visit to Hinton in July 1671 may well have played some part. His transformation into a fully fledged courtier received royal acknowledgment in June 1674 when he was appointed to replace the recently disgraced Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury as lord lieutenant of Dorset. His territorial qualifications for this role were by no means great, though the large concentration of Poulett land in the area around Chard, near the southern border of Somerset, extended into the eastern districts of Dorset. The family connection with Lyme Regis, for which Poulett’s grandfather (subsequently Baron Poulett) had sat during the reign of James I, appears to have largely ceased after the Restoration, when the family failed to recover lands confiscated by Parliament and given to the town’s corporation.9 Poulett’s chief concern as lord lieutenant was in keeping the troops of militia to their required quotas and to a satisfactory level of regulation. Instructed from Whitehall to improve matters, he concluded early in 1676 that the deficiencies in Dorset were due to an inadequate number of deputy lieutenants, and in the course of the year obtained royal approval for three new additions.10
Poulett was missing from the opening of the session which began on 13 Apr. 1675, and from the call of the House on 29 April. He first attended on 12 May and sat for 13 days, nearly 32 per cent of the total. He was also absent from the opening of the session which began on 13 Oct. 1675, first attending on the 19th. He missed the call of the House on 10 Nov. and attended on only five days, 24 per cent of the total. His last attendance was on 20 Nov. when, at the height of the acrimony between the two Houses, ostensibly over the Sherley v. Fagg case, he voted against the attempt by opposition factions to secure an address requesting the king to dissolve Parliament.
Poulett was present at the opening of the 1677–8 session on 15 Feb. 1677, thereafter attending on 26 days before the adjournment on 16 Apr. 1677, 53 per cent of the total. At some point during this session, the incarcerated Shaftesbury classed him as ‘vile’ on his analysis of lay peers. When Parliament resumed for a short meeting in May 1677 Poulett sat on three of the five days. He was also present when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, but was then absent until 11 February. After sitting for a few days, on 22 Feb. he registered his proxy with a dependable court peer, Edward Conway, 3rd Viscount Conway. A marginal note in the proxy book then states that the proxy was cancelled when Poulett gave it to William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard. On 9 Apr. it was registered with the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby. It was cancelled when Poulett attended on 3 May 1678. In all he had attended on 11 days of this part of the session, 18 per cent of the total. He was present when the next session began on 23 May 1678, sitting for 18 days, 42 per cent of the total.
Poulett first attended the session of October–December 1678 on 28 Oct. and was present on 41 days, nearly 70 per cent of the total. The Popish Plot crisis later that year saw him adopt an uncompromisingly anti-Catholic line. On 15 Nov., in the committee of the whole on the bill to exclude Catholics from Parliament (the ‘second Test bill’), he was among the contingent of court lords and bishops who joined peers of country persuasion in voting to include the declaration against transubstantiation in the bill. With the court openly split on this issue, Poulett was not reluctant to demonstrate his own wish to see fellow peers deprived of their parliamentary rights on religious grounds, even if it meant excluding James Stuart, duke of York, and causing offence to the king. A month later, as anti-Catholic feeling mounted, Poulett took a similar line against the king’s interests in relation to the Commons’ bill for disbanding forces raised since 1677. Under royal pressure the peers had amended this bill in committee on 19 Dec., overturning the Commons’ provisions for barring the crown from access to the sums to be raised from disbandment, which, it was feared, might be employed towards the establishment of popery. When the committee reported the next day, Poulett was among those who signed a protest against the amendments, thereby aligning himself with opposition peers who had little scruple about restraining the royal prerogative; he was absent, however, on 26 Dec. when the House voted on whether the amendments should be retained.
As the impeachment proceedings against Danby unfolded during March and April 1679, the beleaguered lord treasurer listed Poulett as a likely supporter of his cause on a canvassing list, with Peregrine Bertie‡ being assigned to contact him. Poulett attended only one day of the short session of 6–13 Mar. 1679; he was present when the next session began on 15 Mar., attending on 14 days (23 per cent of the total) before he last sat on 30 April. On 9 May he was excused a call of the House on the grounds of ill health. On two of Danby’s subsequent calculations of support he was noted as ‘absent’, with Sir Bernard Gascoyne being assigned to contact him. He was in fact mortally ill, and on 29 May he signed his will, describing himself as ‘weak of body’. The exact date of Poulett’s death has not been found, though it occurred some time between 14 June, when he added a codicil to his will, and the 26th, when it was noted that he was ‘lately dead’.11 He was succeeded by his young son, John Poulett, 4th Baron Poulett.
A.A.H./S.N.H.- 1 Wood, Life and Times, iii. 360.
- 2 HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 371.
- 3 TNA, PROB 11/361.
- 4 Bodl. Carte 145, f. 129.
- 5 HMC Wells, ii. 432.
- 6 HJ, xxxi. 794–5; CSP Dom. 1667–8, p. 402.
- 7 Travels of Cosmo the Third (1821), 140–3.
- 8 HMC Le Fleming, 81.
- 9 HMC 7th Rep. 447.
- 10 HJ, xxxi. 795; CSP Dom. 1675–6, pp. 526, 541; 1676–7, pp. 206, 222, 318, 324.
- 11 HMC 7th Rep. 473.