| Honorific Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Earl of Yarmouth | |
| Honorific Suffix: | FRS |
| Office: | Member of Parliament for Norwich |
| Term Start: | 1678 |
| Term End: | 1683 |
| Predecessor: | Christopher Jay Francis Corie |
| Birth Name: | William Paston |
| Birth Date: | 1654 |
| Death Place: | Epsom, Surrey |
| Alma Mater: | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Parents: | Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth Rebecca Clayton |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 4, including Charles Paston, Lord Paston |
| Relations: | Sir William Paston, 1st Baronet (grandfather) |
William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth FRS (1654 – 25 December 1732) of Oxnead, Norfolk and Turnham Green, Chiswick, Middlesex was a British peer and politician.
Born in 1654, he was the eldest surviving son of six sons and three daughters of Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth and his wife, Rebecca, née Clayton and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Yarmouth in 1683, inheriting his estate and Oxnead Hall.[1]
His paternal grandparents were the antiquarian and arts collector Sir William Paston, 1st Baronet of Oxnead and, his first wife, Lady Katherine Bertie (a daughter of the 1st Earl of Lindsey). His maternal grandfather was Sir Jasper Clayton, a haberdasher from London.
Paston was elected as a Tory Member of Parliament for Norwich from 1678. In 1679, when his father was made an earl, William adopted the style of Lord Paston. He continued to represent Norwich until he inherited his father's title.[1]
He converted to Roman Catholicism and in February 1687, James II appointed him Treasurer of the Household. He was also appointed joint Lord-Lieutenant of Wiltshire and Custos Rotulorum of Wiltshire in 1688.[1]
He reconverted to Anglicanism in 1689, but refused to swear allegiance to William and Mary when they came to the throne that year, subsequently losing all his offices.[1]
Suspected of Jacobitism, he was imprisoned twice, but was admitted to the House of Lords in 1696. He was briefly Vice-Admiral of Norfolk in 1719.[1]
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1722.[2]
In 1671, he had married the widowed Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria Howard (née FitzRoy) (–1684), the illegitimate daughter of Charles II and Elizabeth Killigrew Boyle,[3] wife of Francis Boyle (afterwards Viscount Shannon in Ireland). With her first husband, dramatist James Howard,[4] she had a daughter, Stuarta Werburge Howard, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary II who died unmarried. Before her death in London on 28 July 1684, they had four children who survived childhood, though only one survived him:
Charlotte was buried at Westminster Abbey. After her death, he married another wealthy widow, Hon. Elizabeth Wiseman (née North) (1647–1730) in March 1687. The widow of Sir Robert Wiseman, she was a daughter of Dudley North, 4th Baron North and sister to Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford, Roger North, and John North.[8]
Lady Yarmouth died in 1830 and Lord Yarmouth died, heavily in debt, on 25 December 1732 at Epsom, Surrey, aged seventy-eight. As his sons, his brothers and their male heirs had predeceased him, his titles became extinct. His heavily mortgaged estate had to be sold.
Throug his eldest son Charles, he was a grandfather of Hon. Elizabeth Paston (d. 1724), who also predeceased Lord Yarmouth.
Through his daughter, Lady Charlotte, he was a grandfather of Paston Herne, whose illegitimate daughter, Anne Herne, married Sir Everard Buckworth (later Buckworth-Herne), 5th Baronet, and was the mother of Sir Buckworth Buckworth-Herne-Soame, 6th Baronet.