Thomas Paget, 3rd Baron Paget

Thomas Paget, 3rd Baron Paget (c. 1544 – 1590) was an English peer, the second son of William Paget, 1st Baron Paget. He succeeded to the barony in 1568 at the death of his elder brother, Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget.

Family Thomas Paget, born about 1544, was the second son of William Paget, 1st Baron Paget, and Anne Preston (d. 1587), the daughter of Henry Preston. He had three brothers, Henry, Charles and Edward (died young), and six sisters, Etheldreda, who married Sir Christopher Allen; Eleanor, who married firstly, Jerome Palmer, esquire, and secondly, Sir Rowland Clarke; Grisold, who married firstly, Sir Thomas Rivett, and secondly, Sir William Waldegrave; Joan (or Jane), who married Thomas Kitson, son of Sir Thomas Kitson and Margaret Donnington; Dorothy, who married Sir Thomas Willoughby (d. 1559); and Anne (d. 1590), who married Sir Henry Lee.

Career Paget matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge on 27 May 1559, and in 1561 was admitted to the Middle Temple. He succeeded his elder brother, Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget in 1568, 'and (according to the decision of the House of Lords governing the succession of this title in 1770) succeeded his niece Elizabeth as the fourth holder of the Paget peerage in 1570, accordingly receiving a summons to parliament in 1571'.

By this time, he had married Nazareth Newton a wealthy widow and former lady-in-waiting. The marriage was unhappy and they separated by 1582. Conspiracy Thomas Paget and his brother Charles were both devout Catholics, and would not conform to the Protestant religion of Queen Elizabeth I. Aided by Henry Percy, Paget fled to Paris on the uncovering of the Throckmorton Plot in November 1583, joining his brother Charles who had been in exile there since 1581. The failed conspiracy's plan was for an invasion of England by French forces under the command of Henry, Duke of Guise, financed by Philip II of Spain. English Catholics would then rise up and depose Elizabeth, placing Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne.

After his flight to France Elizabeth issued a proclamation commanding Thomas Paget to return to England. In June 1584 a formal demand for the surrender of Paget was made to the King of France through the English ambassador, which was not carried out.

Attainted In 1587 Thomas and his brother were attainted of treason by act of parliament. Thomas Paget's honours were forfeited and their properties were confiscated by the Crown. Paget received a pension of 180 crowns per month from Philip II and died in Brussels in early 1590. In 1603 Elizabeth I died. In 1604 James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, restored the Paget family lands and honours to Thomas Paget's Protestant son, William.