CHALONER, Thomas

Nothing is known for certain about this MP’s family background, although he was probably related to John Chaloner, an associate of Bartholomew Bolney*, the Lincoln’s inn lawyer, with whom he himself had close contact .3 Bolney Bk. (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxiii), 8. Like Bolney, Thomas received a legal training and was active as an attorney in the court of common pleas, handling Sussex suits from 1435 onwards.4 CP40/699, rots. 185, 185d, 211, 269; 704, rot. 23. Sometimes in the 1440s he brought pleas on his own account, and in 1455 he sued John Gargrave* the former marshal of the Marshalsea prison, together with a Lambeth brewer, for a debt of ten marks.5 CP40/742, rot. 6; 779 rots. 43, 269d.

It seems likely that by the time Chaloner attested the Sussex elections of 1442 he had established himself as a landowner in the county, and he was living at Cuckfield by 1439.6 C1/9/401. Yet at this stage in his career his principal interests appear to have been in Surrey. His first marriage brought him the manor of Chelsham Watevile in the east of that county, which had been sold to Thomas and Isabel Basset in 1440, although in 1455 he and his wife Margaret, who may have been the Bassets’ heir, themselves sold the manor to Thomas Cook II*, the London draper.7 VCH Surr. iv. 271; CP25(1)/232/74/14. That same year the couple also dealt with a number of properties nearer London, situated at Lambeth and Camberwell, in which Margaret held a reversionary interest designed to fall in on the death of one Margaret Alberton. This reversion they also sold, although Chaloner retained other holdings in the neighbourhood. He and his wife continued to have a principal residence in Sussex,8 CP25(1)/232/74/18; Harvard Univ. Law School Lib., English deeds, AOA8289. where besides the house at Cuckfield Chaloner also held property at Cliffe near Lewes and an estate at Rottingdean, on the coast, which was conveyed to him and others in 1456.9 VCH Suss. vii. 235; CP25(1)/241/91/14.

Among those associated with Chaloner in this latter transaction was Bartholomew Bolney, with whom he had been linked in a professional capacity for many years, and who had already assisted him in his acquisition of land at Hurstpierpoint.10 C1/9/401; Cat. Wiston Archs. ed. Booker, 96. In turn, Chaloner acted as a feoffee of property Bolney purchased.11 Bolney Bk. 75, 76, 81. The two associates entered the Commons at the same time, for when Chaloner was elected to the Parliament of 1460 for the Sussex borough of East Grinstead, Bolney was returned for the shire, both of them apparently being newcomers to the parliamentary scene. While up at Westminster, Chaloner brought suits under the Statute of Labourers against two of his servants at Cliffe, for leaving his service before the end of their term.12 CP40/799, rot. 441d. Also during the first session, two men from Essex who had been outlawed for failing to answer his plea for a debt of 20 marks both obtained royal pardons; perhaps they had reached an accord with him out of court.13 CPR, 1452-61, p. 621.

There is little to throw light on Chaloner’s political stance at this stage in his career. The Parliament had been summoned in the aftermath of the Yorkist victory at Northampton, but although Chaloner had been appointed to a royal commission back in 1455, shortly after the Yorkists had triumphed at St. Albans, no similar appointments were forthcoming when Edward IV came to the throne. It may be the case that at the time of his election he was already employed on the Sussex estates of the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk, for in the 1470s he served the then duke as under steward of courts in the barony of Lewes. He was retained in office when the Mowbray estates passed by marriage to the King’s younger son, Richard, duke of York. At the same time two of his kinsmen, both named John Chaloner, jointly occupied the parkership of Bentley in Cuckfield, which formed part of the same inheritance.14 Moye, 440. See John Chaloner of Lindfield, senior, who in his will of July 1491 named his son John as an executor: PCC 29 Dogett (PROB11/9, f. 231).

At an unknown date before November 1477, Chaloner relinquished to John Audley*, Lord Audley, his title to lands at Huntspill in Somerset, which, as they had once belonged to William Alberton, may have once pertained to his first wife.15 CP40/865, cart. rot. 1. He died on 3 Jan. 1481, leaving as his heir to property at Hurstpierpoint his eldest son, John, who was said to be aged 20.16 C140/79/24. In the following year the MP’s widow, Alice, brought a plea of dower against John, claiming a third part of various holdings not only there but also at Cliffe and Cuckfield.17 CP40/882, rot. 351. She later married Richard Selwyn of Selmeston.18 C1/88/31. The MP’s properties in the parishes of Camberwell and Lambeth passed to another son, Bartholomew, who in 1484 leased some of them to the keeper of the privy seal for an annual rent of £3.19 CAD, vi. C5194.