Withyham.
_Rev. John Paget_ (Vol. iv., p. 133.; Vol. v., p. 66.).--CRANMORE'S
inquiry has not been fully answered, nor am I able to point out the
precise degree of relationship between John Paget and the editor of his
works, Thomas Paget. The latter became incumbent of Blackley, near
Manchester, about the year 1605, having been placed in that chapelry
chiefly through the efforts of the Rev. William Bourne, B.D., a native
of Staffordshire, who had married a kinswoman of Lord Burleigh, and who
was for many years an influential Fellow of the Collegiate Church of
Manchester. (See Hollingworth's _Mancuniensis_, pp. 106, 107.) In 1617
Thomas Paget was cited before Morton, Bishop of Chester, for
nonconformity; and shortly afterwards he was convened before Bishop
Bridgeman on the same ground. He is styled at this time "the good old
man" (Brook's _Lives_, vol. ii. p. 293.), although he lived at least
forty years afterwards. In the delightful _Autobiography of Henry
Newcome, M.A._, the Presbyterian Minister of Manchester, edited for the
Chetham Society by the Rev. Canon Parkinson, D.D. (2 vols. 4to. 1852),
are several interesting notices of Mr. Thomas Paget. He is mentioned as
"old Mr. Pagit, late of Blakeley," in 1658, and seems to have had the
rectory of Stockport in 1659, although Richard Baxter spoke of him in
1656 as "old and sickly," and then living at Shrewsbury. He was well
known, says the amiable Newcome, "as a man of much frowardness," and
able to create "much unquietness;" but Baxter hoped, "not altogether so
morose as some report him."