Paul Wentworth was of Puritan sympathies, and he first came into notice by the freedom with which in 1566 he criticized Elizabeth's prohibition of discussion in parliament on the question of her successor.
[2] Paul, who was probably the author of the famous puritan devotional book The Miscellanie, or Regestrie and Methodicall Directorie of Orizons (London, 1615), died in 1593.
He became possessed of Burnham Abbey through his wife, to whose first husband, William Tyldesley, it had been granted at the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
Graves denies the significance of Wentworth's speech on the Monday following the Queen's Saturday 9 November 1566 order to end discussion on a topic, which has been quoted for over four centuries.
On the Monday following, Wentworth, who as far as is known had not previously intervened, asked ‘whether the Queen’s commandment was not against the liberties’ of the House and presented three foundational 'questions' that led to enhancement of the freedom of speech within parliament, amongst peers and later across society.