[4] 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.
[5] 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.
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.
Notwithstanding all which, so effectual and forcible were the means with which they practiced against him, that they got him to be imprisoned in Paris, laying to his charge, that he was an intelligencer for sir Frances Walsingham, a traitor to the service of the Queen his mistress, and from time to time a discoverer of her practices, and withal procured the Queen to conceive exceedingly ill of him, and taking the receivership of her dowry in France from him, to bestow the same upon the bishop of Ross.