Chaloner Chute I (died 14 April 1659) of The Vyne, Sherborne St John, Hampshire, was an English lawyer, Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Commons during the Commonwealth.
Origins
Chute was the son of Charles Chute
["Charles", per Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, Volume 1, 1847, p.220 [1]] of the Middle Temple, a lawyer, by his wife Ursula Chaloner, a daughter of John Chaloner of Fulham in Middlesex.
Career
He was admitted to the
Middle Temple and was called to the bar. He developed a great reputation as a defence lawyer in several high-profile cases including those of Sir Edward Herbert (the king's attorney-general), Archbishop Laud, the eleven members of the House of Commons charged by Fairfax and his army as delinquents, and James Duke of Hamilton.
In 1653 he bought from Lord Sandys
, a very large Tudor manor house in Hampshire. He demolished much of the northern part of the decaying building and employed the architect John Webb, a pupil of Inigo Jones, to add the portico to the north front in the 1650s, the first of its kind on an English country house.
Chute was elected as a Member of Parliament for Middlesex in the Second Protectorate Parliament in 1656, but was prevented from taking his seat. He was elected again for Middlesex to the Third Protectorate Parliament in 1659 and became its first Speaker.
Memorial
The magnificent memorial to Chaloner Chute was commissioned by his descendant Sir John Chute (d.1776) and designed and created by Thomas Carter the Younger of London. It is made of
Carrera marble and cost £335. It was begun in 1775 and completed some time after Sir John's death in 1776.
[Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis p.86]
Marriages and issue
Chute married twice:
-
Firstly to Anne Skory, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Skory/Scory of Wormesley, Herefordshire, and widow of William Place of Dorking, Surrey, by whom he had issue one son and two daughters:
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Secondly he married Dorothy North, a daughter of Dudley North, 3rd Baron North (1581–1666), and widow of Baron Dacre (1596–1630), by whom he had no further issue.
Dorothy had been assigned the manor of Sutton Court, Chiswick in 1653, under the Commonwealth. However, following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Sutton Court was given to the Royalist courtier, Sir Edward Nicholas.
See also
-
Charles Herbert Cottrell (a descendant)
