# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Paulet, Charles (1661-1722)

​PAULET or POWLETT, CHARLES, second Duke of Bolton (1661–1722), second and eldest surviving son of Charles, first duke [q. v.], by his second wife, Mary, widow of Henry Carey, lord Leppington, was born in 1661. He entered parliament in 1681 as member for Hampshire, and represented that county until his father's death in 1699. A few months prior to the Revolution, being then styled Lord Wiltshire, he went over to Holland, and returned with the Prince of Orange; he was one of the advanced guard who entered Exeter with William in November 1688 (Dartmouth MSS. f. 192; Whittle, Exact Diary of the late Expedition of the Prince of Orange). He held the office of lord chamberlain to the queen from 1689 to 1694 (Boyer, William III, p. 200), and was bearer of the orb at the coronation on 11 April 1689. He was sworn a privy councillor on 3 June 1690, and in the following year he made the campaign of Flanders, taking part in the engagement of 9 Sept. in that year (ib. p. 323). He was one of the lords justices of Ireland from 1697 to 1699. He entertained William on more than one occasion at Winton, and seems to have stood high in his favour. His consequent dislike for the Princess Anne was intensified by jealousy of the Duke of Marlborough, and he is said, with probable truth, to have been engaged upon an intrigue with the Duke of Newcastle for passing over Anne in the interests of the Princess Sophia (Dartmouth's note on Burnet, iv. 540). He was, however, soon reconciled to the new order of things upon William's death. He was made warden of the New Forest on 1 July 1702, and shortly afterwards was appointed lord lieutenant of the counties of Dorset and Southampton. In April 1705 he waited on the queen at Cambridge, and was made doctor of laws by the university, and in the following September he entertained Anne and the young Duke of Gloucester with great pomp at Winton (Luttrell, v. 589). In 1706 he was appointed a commissioner to treat of the union between England and Scotland, and he was also on the special committee of twenty-two selected by the commissioners in May 1706 (Boyer, p. 234). In 1708 he was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight. Early in 1710 he was much annoyed by the bestowal of the vacant Garter on the Duke of Argyll; but Marlborough, with whom he had gradually become reconciled, was able to conciliate him, and retain his support for the war party. In June of this year he took what was generally considered to be the unwise step of moving the House of Lords to examine if their privileges were not invaded by the action of the queen in sending a message to the commons, solely to enable her to raise 500,000l. upon the civil list. In April 1714 Bolton again signalised himself in the lords by seconding the motion putting a price upon the Pretender's head (ib. p. 684; Wentworth Papers, p. 365); a few weeks afterwards he signed the protest against the Schism Act (Boyer, p. 706; Rogers, Protests of the Lords, i. 221). After the proclamation of George I in 1714 Bolton was named one of the lords justices, and he was installed K.G. on 8 Dec. 1714. From this date until his death he ‘muddled and intrigued’ about the court, where he was usually in high favour. He was created lord chamberlain on 8 July 1715, and on 16 April 1717 he was made lord lieutenant of Ireland. He was at Dublin for the opening of the Irish parliament on 1 July 1719, and is said to have made an excellent speech (Oldmixon, Hist. of England, p. 683); he was, however, satirised by Eustace Budgell in his ‘Letter to the Lord …’ in 1719. He died on 21 Jan. 1722 (Hist. Reg. Chron. Diary, p. 9), and was buried on 1 Feb. at Basing, Hampshire.
Swift, in a note on Macky's character, remarked of Bolton that he did not make a figure ‘at court or anywhere else. A great booby.’ It must be questioned, however, whether Swift knew much of him, as in the ‘Journal to Stella’ (Letter xxxiii.) he seems to confuse him with his brother, Lord William. Pope mentioned Bolton to Spence as one of those that had the ‘nobleman look.’ Lady Cowper, in her ‘Diary,’ describes him more specifically as generally to be seen with his tongue lolling out of his mouth (p. 154). His general inaptitude for serious business appears to be one of the objects of Dr. Joseph Browne's satire in his ‘Country Parsons Advice to the Lord Keeper,’ 1706. ​Bolton was three times married: first, on 7 July 1679, to Margaret (d. 1682), only daughter of George, lord Coventry, by whom he left no issue; secondly, to Frances (d. 1696), daughter of Sir William Ramsden, bart., by whom he had two sons, Charles [q. v.] and Harry, successively dukes of Bolton, and two daughters; thirdly, in 1697, at Dublin, to Henrietta Crofts, youngest natural daughter of James Scot, duke of Monmouth, by Eleanor, younger daughter of Sir Robert Needham of Lambeth, and sister of Jane Myddelton [q. v.], the famous beauty (see Post Boy, 23 Jan. 1722). By his third wife, who became a lady of the bedchamber to the Princess of Wales in 1714, and survived until 27 Feb. 1730, he had a son, Lord Nassau Paulet, who represented successively the county of Southampton and the borough of Lymington in parliament (1714–1734). He was on 9 Oct. 1723 appointed auditor-general of Ireland, and on 27 May 1725 created a K.B. He died on 24 Aug. 1741, leaving one son and two daughters.
Dr. Radcliffe, the celebrated physician, was popularly supposed to have been ‘desperately in love’ with the third wife of the second duke, and ‘he declared, said the gossips, that he would make her son his heir, upon which the Duke of Bolton is not at all alarmed, but gives the old amorist an opportunity to make his court’ (Wentworth Papers, p. 97). The portrait of the third duchess by Kneller was engraved by Smith in 1703.
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