Clement Paston, MP

Family and Education b. by 1523, 5th but 4th surv. s. of Sir William Paston of Caister and Oxnead, by Bridget, da. of Sir Henry Heydon† of Baconsthorpe; bro. of Erasmus†, John† and Sir Thomas†. m. aft. 1567, Alice, da. of Humphrey Pakington of London, wid. of Richard Lambert of London, s.p.

Offices Held

Gent. pens. by 1544-d.; j.p. Norf. from c.1577, commr. musters by 1579.2

Biography Mentioned in 1544 as ‘one of the pensioners’ and as a fitting person to command one of the King’s ships, Clement Paston was given a command in 1545 and, with the accession of Elizabeth, he was active both in the navy and the army. Though still described as the ‘Queen’s servant’ in 1559, he then retired to his Norfolk estates and lived as a country gentleman. At the by-election of 1566 the 4th Duke of Norfolk told the sheriff to nominate ‘those I talked with you of’, i.e. Roger Townshend and Clement Paston, with the proviso that should Sir Richard Fulmerston—then a burgess for Thetford—ask for the second county seat, his request should be granted, and Paston would then be accommodated at Thetford. Fulmerston, however, retained the seat at Thetford.3

Though Paston’s name was on a list drawn up in the interests of Mary Stuart in 1574, and though his attitude to the Elizabethan settlement was reported lukewarm as late as 1587, he kept clear of a plot discovered in July 1570 to free the Duke of Norfolk from the Tower and commit other ‘horrible treason’, and was appointed a commissioner to deal with those involved. He also avoided the disputes which occupied the Norfolk justices after the fall of the Duke in 1572.4

Paston was bequeathed by his father the family property at Oxnead, and having married a rich widow, he built a new house there. There ‘he spent his old age honourably, quietly and in good-housekeeping’, and there he died on 18 Feb. 1598. His will, made on 5 Sept. 1594, was proved on 14 Mar. 1598. He asked to be buried at Oxnead church, bequeathed the household goods and £1,000 to his wife, and remembered relatives and friends. The prisoners of Norwich were left £28.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: A. M. Mimardière Notes 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament. Folger, V. b. 298. 2. Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 216-17; PCC 26 Stonard; Mill Stephenson, Mon. Brasses, 359; A. H. Smith thesis, App. I.; LP Hen. VIII, xix; LC2/4/2. 3. DNB; CPR, 1558-60, p. 66; A. H. Smith thesis, 113, 226, 235; SP12/133/14. 4. Trans. Norf. Arch. Soc. v. 75-6; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 390; APC, ix. 344; xiii. 310; xxii. 87-8, 93; Cath. Rec. Soc. Misc. viii. 95; Strype, Annals, iii(2), 460. 5. Mason, Hist. Norf. 153; Fuller, Worthies, ii. 456; The Pastons: the Story of a Norf. Fam. (Norwich Castle Mus. 1953), 17; PCC 27, 28 Lewyn.

Sir Clement Paston was Naval commander under Henry VIII, Protector Somerset, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Second son of Sir William Paston and Bridget Heydon. His sister Eleanor was married to Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland. He is first mentioned in 1544 as 'one of the pensioners' and a fitting man to command a king's ship. In 1545 he commanded the Pelican of Danzig, of three hundred tons, in the fleet under Lord Lisle. In 1546, still, presumably, in the Pelican, he captured a French galley having on board the Baron St. Blanchard, who appears to have been coming to England on some informal embassy from the King of France. The galley was probably the Mermaid, which was added to the English navy ; but of the circumstances of the capture no record can be found. It was afterwards debated whether the galley was 'good prize', and whether St. Blanchard ought to pay ransom, for which Paston demanded five thousand crowns, with two thousand more for maintenance of the baron, held in Caister Castle. At the request of Henri II, on giving his bond for the money, St. Blanchard was released, and he returned to France with his servants, two horses, and twelve mastiff dogs. Afterwards he pleaded that he was under compulsion at the time, and that the bond was worthless, nor does it appear that the money was paid. Paston, however, kept the plunder of the galley, of which a gold cup, with two snakes forming the handles, was in 1829 still in the possession of the family.

At the battle of Pinkie in 1547, Paston was wounded and left for dead. It is said that he was the captor of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1554, which is contrary to evidence, and that he commanded the fleet at Havre in 1562, which is fiction. In 1570 he was a magistrate of Norfolk, and a commissioner for the trial and execution of traitors (State Papers, Dom. Elizabeth, Ixxiii. 28), and in 1587, though a deputy-lieutenant of the county, he was suspected of being lukewarm in the interests of religion (STRYPE, Annals, in. ii. 460). In 1588 he was sheriff of Norfolk. He died on 18 Feb 1597, and was buried in the church of Oxnead, where a stately marble tomb testifies that '... princes he served four, In peace and war, as fortune did command, Sometimes by sea and sometimes on the shore...'.

He married Alice Packington, widow of Edward Lambert. He appears to have had no children, and left the bulk of his property to his wife, with remainder to his nephew, Sir William Paston.

Notes

In 1554 Sir William Paston, an eminent lawyer and courtier who had been present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, bequeathed Oxnead to his fourth son, Clement Paston (1515–1597).[2]

Citations:

• 2. Erpingham: Oxnead', An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: volume 6 (1807), pp. 477-496. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=78283&strquery=... Date accessed 4 July 2009