Thomas Paget ( October 1660) was an English Puritan clergyman, controversialist and theologian, committed to a Presbyterian church order. As a minister in Manchester, he was an early opponent of Laudian ceremonies in the Church of England. He served the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam, and later at Shrewsbury was a strong supporter of the regicide and of the republican Commonwealth of England. He spent his final year as rector of Stockport.

Origins

Thomas Paget was the younger brother of the Puritan minister and writer John Paget. They are said to have belonged to the Paget family of Rothley, a village on the edge of Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire. Their parents are unknown and it is impossible to be sure that Rothley was their place of birth. Thomas was admitted to the University of Cambridge in 1605, suggesting a birth date around 1587.

Education and ordination

Paget entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a sizar, a student receiving some assistance with costs, at Easter 1605.Entry in Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, available at and He graduated B.A. early in 1609. A Thomas Paget B.A. of Trinity College was ordained deacon by the local ordinary, Martin Heton, on 6 June 1609 at Little Downham,CCEd Record ID: 122628 a Cambridgeshire village where the Bishop of Ely had a palace: this seems to be him, although the Clergy of the Church of England database makes no link between this and his later career in Manchester. He proceeded to M.A. in 1612.

Manchester

Appointment and ministry

Paget's first post was probably at Blackley chapel, which was part of the parish of St Mary's Church, Manchester. This had been a collegiate church in the late Middle Ages, established in 1421 at the instance of Thomas la Warr, 5th Baron De La Warr, who became its first warden,Farrer and Brownbill (1908), Colleges: Manchester. by Henry V and Pope Martin V. Blackley chapel already existed at this time, and had been licensed for use by Roger de la Warr, Thomas's father, in 1360.Farrer and Brownbill (1911), Townships: Blackley, footnote 45. There were a number of chapels in the parish, generally established initially to provide for the needs of local landowners and their dependents: the Byron family, who held Blackley of the de la WarrsBooker, p. 49. and lived locally, had applied for licences for chapels across their Lancashire estates from the early 15th century.Booker, p. 2-3. The college was dissolved at the beginning of Edward VI's reign,Halley, p. 36. along with almost all other colleges and chantries in England, but, unlike most of the others, was refounded by Mary I. Whatever its institutional character, St Mary's church continued to hold the advowson of Blackley chapel. Blackley became associated with radical Protestantism in this period. The Marian martyr John Bradford was probably a Blackley manFarrer and Brownbill (1911), Townships: Blackley, Manor. He was certainly strongly influenced by Father Traves or Travis, the minister of Blackley in the mid-16th century.Halley, p. 37.

Paget was described as curate of Blackley in the Liber cleri or canonical visitation report for 1620CCEd Record ID: 173557 and as lecturer two years later.CCEd Record ID: 173786 However, he was appointed well before this, although clearly not as early as 1603, or even 1600, which some sources give, basing this on the earliest possible date attributable to a "platform" or plan of the chapel in which a Mr Paget is mentioned.Booker, p. 66. Throughout the 16th century he chapel was probably regarded as the private oratory of the Byron family, who lived still locally.Farrer and Brownbill (1911), Townships: Blackley, footnote 46. However, the Byrons moved away and began to sell off their property. On 16 May 1611 a group of interested parties, headed by Sir John Byron of Newstead Abbey, sold the chapel and its environs to three trustees, John Cudworth, James Chetham and Edmund Howarth, to provide a place of worship for local people.Farrer and Brownbill (1911), Townships: Blackley, Church. The deed provided that the purchasers and their heirs shall and will at all times for ever hereafter permit and suffer all and every the inhabitants, tenants or farmers of any messuage, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments in Blakeley aforesaid, their heirs and assigns, and every of them which have agreed, purchas'd, or hereafter shall agree and purchase any messuages, lands, tenements or other hereditaments in Blakeley aforesaid to have and enjoy the said chappel, chappel yard, chamber, and garden, and all other premises with the appurtenances, as well for the saying and hearing Divine Service as for any other necessary and convenient purposes at the wills and pleasures of such inhabitants, tenants or farmers, their heirs and assigns as aforesaid...Booker, p. 50-1. The chapel was not the only property disposed of by the Byrons that day: a farm was sold for £70 to John Jackson,Booker, p. 45. whose family name occurs on the chapel plan.

1611 coincides with the period when the recently graduated and ordained Paget would have been seeking a post, and he seems to have been the first settled minister after the chapel became a fully public place of worship. He was recruited by William Bourne, a fellow of St Mary's, Manchester, who was particularly interested in ensuring a good supply of ministers at the outlying chapels.Hollingsworth, p. 105. A permanent post allowed Paget to marry. He had family and social connections at Nantwich, where his brother John had served as rector and married before being forced to emigrate to the Dutch Republic.Hall, p. 295 Thomas married Margery Gouldsmith at St Mary's Church, Nantwich on 6 April 1613.Hall, p. 296 The first child of the marriage, Nathan, was baptised at Manchester on 31 March 1615.

Paget's income was drawn from the pew rents and offerings of his congregation. The rent was due in quarterly instalments, as an episcopal confirmation of 1631 makes clear: the collection dates were Christmas (25 December), Annunciation (25 June), John the Baptist's Day (24 June) and Michaelmas (29 September).Booker, p. 54. This was just after Paget left, as the clerk at the time was his successor, William Rathband.Booker, p. 53. A plan, dated 1603, shows the layout and rentals of the pews, with the most expensive, nearest the front, being 8 shillings.Booker, p. 55. One of the seats is assigned to Mr Paget, giving rise to the belief that Thomas Paget was minister at Blackley in 1603. The minister at that date was Oliver Carter, who served from 1598 until his death in March 1605,Booker, p. 64-6. and Paget's university admission date makes it impossible that he was serving in Manchester in 1603: there is an unexplained discrepancy in the sources. The plan gives considerable insight into who were the key lay supporters of the Puritan preaching at Blackley, with the Travis family still featuring strongly. It seems that lay offerings and support were considerable, as the old building was completely renovated during Paget's incumbency.Booker, p. 52. Sometimes Paget, like other ministers, benefited from bequests, as in 1624, when Judith Foxe left him 20 shillings in her will, Richardson, p. 137. as well as various sums for other ministers and more to be distributed by Bourne. Depending on this strong congregational base, the Presbyterian ministers also seem to have attempted a form of regional voluntary presbytery. Richard Hollinworth, a 17th-century Manchester Presbyterian minister, reports in his Mancuniensis that Bourne, with Paget and other ministers he approved, "often mett in a kind of consultatiue classis."Hollingsworth, p. 106., cited by Richardson, p. 67. They also took part together in preaching exercises, in which two or more sermons would be delivered at a particular chapel, with visiting preachers adding variety.

Conflict and flight

Serious conflict between Lancashire Puritans and the ecclesiastical authorities broke out in 1617, bringing into the open a number of disputes that had already simmered for some time. The issues came to a head after James I visited Hoghton Tower on 17 August 1617 during a royal progress through Lancashire. There he was presented with a petition prepared by local religious conservatives, requesting relaxation of the laws governing Sunday observance, asking they be allowed to pursue "lawful recreations and honest exercises" after the service:Halley, p. 127. the Tudor dynasty had progressively restricted such pursuits. The king responded positively and ordered Thomas Morton, the Bishop of Chester, who was the preacher on the occasion, to prepare the Declaration of Sports, which was later applied to the whole country but was read out initially only in Lancashire. The document specifically excluded those who did not attend the Sunday service, meaning recusant Catholics, and those who attended churches outside their own parish, applying to Puritans, who frequently went to hear preaching in another parish after the service in their own.Halley, p. 129. Paget seems to have been closely associated in the minds of contemporaries with resistance to the so-called Book of Sports, as a tale of miraculous conversion was told of him in that connection. The grandmother of Oliver Heywood, the nonconformist minister, had a husband who was considered "carnal" because he went shooting on Sunday afternoons. She went for advice and prayer to the Puritan minister of Ainsworth, to no avail. However, the man visited Bury for the fair. Finding the church open for lectures, he went in and heard Paget speak. He was converted and set himself on a new course.Halley, p. 131.

Paget was among a number of the resisting Lancashire ministers cited before Bishop Morton for nonconformity. Morton started Court of High Commission proceedings against them. A group of Lancashire justices of the peace petitioned Morton on the ministers' behalf. We have observed (soe farre as we are able to judge, in these our ministers, Integrity of life and conversation, orthodoxall soundnes of doctrine in their teaching, diligence and painfulness in their places; sobriety and peaceablenes in their dispositions free from factiousness. In regard whereof, and also the great good and profit which our Congregations where they remaine have abundantly received from their ministery, we are emboldened eftsoones to intreat &c.Based on Paget's own version in Thomas Paget, Humble p. 5.. Quoted in modernised form by Halley, p. 130. Morton received the letter at Stockport rectory, to which Tobias Matthew, the Archbishop of York had appointed him alongside the bishopric.CCEd Record ID: 77217 He observed in response: "They whom the letter concerneth are the worse to be liked for the good testimony the Gentlemen give of them." It seems from Paget's account that this took place in the presence of himself and other ministers who had been summoned before Morton. In old age, when he had himself become Rector of Stockport, Paget was visited by Henry Newcome and Richard Heyricke, the warden of St Mary's, Manchester and recalled That Bishop Moreton, in that very room, (for he was, when Bishop of Chester, parson of Stockport,) did say to him and some others, about non-conformity, that they despised the Common Prayer; but it had converted more than all their preaching could do or ever would do, or to that purpose. Which expression we much wondered at, from so learned a man, and so great a divine as he was.Autobiography of Henry Newcome, Volume 1, p. 103.