At Limington he came into conflict with law and order as represented by the sheriff, Sir Amias Paulet, who is said by Cavendish to have placed Wolsey in the stocks; Wolsey retaliated long afterwards by confining Paulet to his chambers in the Temple for five or six years.
On one occasion (July 1839) French officers abrogated the laws (particularly against the importation of liquor), dictated treaties, extorted $20,000 and by force of arms procured privileges for Roman Catholic 1 priests in the country; and at another time (February 1843) a British officer, Captain Paulet of the " Carysfort," went so far as to take possession of Oahu and establish a commission for its government.
In August the conspirators were netted, and Mary was arrested at the gate of Tixall Park, whither Paulet had taken her under pretence of a hunting party.
She cheered the wife of her English secretary, now under arrest, with promises to answer for her husband to all accusations brought against him, took her new-born child from the mother's arms, and in default of clergy baptized it, to Paulet's Puritanic horror, with her own hands by her own name.
Paulet, with loyal and regretful indignation, declined the disgrace proposed to him in a suggestion "to shed blood without law or warrant"; and on the 7th of February the earls of Shrewsbury and Kent arrived at Fotheringay with the commission of the council for execution of the sentence given against his prisoner.