The Chudleighs were among the leading gentry of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Devon. The MP’s father, Sir James, had served as escheator of the double-bailiwick of Devon and Cornwall, held the shrievalty of Devon three times, been appointed to numerous ad hoc commissions, and sat as knight of the shire for his county in no fewer than nine of Richard II’s Parliaments. His political prominence aside, Sir James’s three marriages, at least two of which produced surviving offspring, had done much to provide ties of kinship to several of the principal families of the south-west, including the Pomeroys, Beaumonts and Champernownes. Perhaps most importantly, his third wife, Joan Champernowne, the mother of his two surviving sons, survived him, and went on to remarry twice, taking to husband first Sir John Courtenay, second son of Sir Philip Courtenay† of Powderham, and later Sir Walter Rodney†.
His mother’s two later marriages closely connected the young James Chudleigh with the group of men who would become dominant in Devon during the minority of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, from 1422: Rodney’s stepmother, Alice Fitzroger, married as her final husband Sir William Bonville†, whose synonymous grandson and heir became the leading landowner in Devon in that period. Among the younger Sir William Bonville*’s closest associates was Chudleigh’s own half-brother, Philip Courtenay of Powderham. Other active members of the family network were his mother’s nephews Roger Champernowne* and Hugh Champernowne*, as well as her step-grandson Walter Rodney*. Finally, further important familial ties were provided by the successive marriages of James’s half-sister Joan to Sir John St. Aubyn, Sir Philip Bryan† (the son of Guy, Lord Bryan), and Sir Thomas Pomeroy† of Combe-Raleigh.
The date of James’s birth has not been established, but since he had a younger brother, and their father died before the autumn of 1402, it probably occurred before 1400. Nothing is known of the young heir in the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, and it is possible that he either joined his mother in the household of her second husband, Sir John Courtenay, or was taken into the care of the Chudleighs’ principal feudal overlord, the earl of Devon. He probably came of age around 1420, when he made his first appearance on the public stage at the shire elections in the county court at Exeter.
Chudleigh now also succeeded to his extensive estates, including the Devon manors of Ashton and Shirwell, as well as buildings in Exeter, property which at his death was assessed at £86 18s. 4d. p.a. This was an obvious underassessment, probably facilitated by the presence of Chudleigh’s illegitimate kinsman Hugh Champernowne alias Rowe at the head of the jury.
From the mid 1420s Chudleigh began to play an active part in local administration and politics. There can be little doubt that he owed his return to the Leicester Parliament of 1426 to the increasing influence of his kinsmen Sir William Bonville and Philip Courtenay, and a year later was able to return the favour when he was present at the election of the two men in the shire court.
In 1429 Chudleigh’s political career gathered pace. During the summer he was for the first time included in an ad hoc commission, and just weeks later he was elected to Parliament as a knight for Devon for a second time. Parliament had been summoned in the wake of the dual military disasters of the relief of Orléans by the Dauphin’s forces and the English defeat at Patay, and the high point of the first session was Henry VI’s elaborately staged coronation which Chudleigh may be thought to have witnessed. Perhaps as a result of the intense preparations for the coronation, the sheriffs appointed in the autumn of 1428 had not been replaced on completion of their year of service, and remained in post when Parliament reconvened after Christmas. Only in February did the council finally make fresh appointments. Among the men pricked were two sitting Members of the Commons: Thomas de la More* who was appointed sheriff of Cumberland, and Chudleigh who was entrusted with the Devon shrievalty. Hardly had Chudleigh’s term in that office expired when writs for a fresh Parliament were issued, and he was promptly re-elected. Nor was he allowed much rest after the dissolution in April 1431. In November he was made sheriff of Cornwall, and from 1432 to 1436 he was included in a string of ad hoc commissions.
If the pace of these appointments slowed after Earl Thomas of Devon attained his formal majority in 1435, Chudleigh’s career of office-holding had nevertheless not stalled completely. In November 1438 he began a third shrievalty, a term of office that both in the short and the longer term was destined to be rather more troublesome than the previous two, and embroiled him in elaborate litigation. Among the claims that came before the King’s courts was that of Sir John Speke* who had quarrelled with the prominent lawyer Nicholas Radford* in the context of the dispute between Roger Champernowne and Thomas Tremayne I* over the manor of North Huish. Speke, who was anxious to ensure that a jury empanelled by Chudleigh would not be prejudiced against him, had asked the sheriff for a copy of his return, which he had provided. However, perhaps at the bidding of his uncle Champernowne, Chudleigh had then apparently consulted with Radford and made a new return of 38 names, most of whom were said to be openly hostile to Speke.
While Chudleigh served as sheriff, negotiations over the incorporation of the borough of Plymouth gathered pace, pitting the townsmen and the Crown against the feudal overlords of the constituent parts of the borough and its hinterland. One who proved particularly difficult to appease was the abbot of Buckland, and as a major local landowner Chudleigh was called upon to mediate between the burgesses and the abbot, only to find himself taken to law by the abbot in early 1441.
In view of his own early experience of Henry V’s French wars Chudleigh may have watched the deterioration of the English position across the Channel with both interest and concern. Although he had, as far as is known, himself seen no military service in France since 1420, he had periodically taken the muster of expeditionary forces setting out for the continent in the 1430s and early 1440s, and probably kept abreast of developments in Henry VI’s French possessions. This may explain why from 1447, after an interval of 20 years, he once again became a regular participant of the parliamentary elections in the Devon shire court. Although he was probably not himself elected again, he was clearly trusted by the Westminster authorities and in November 1449 was appointed to a fourth and final shrievalty, which he held throughout the crisis year of 1450. By comparison with his counterparts in Kent and Wiltshire, Chudleigh’s term of office was relatively untroubled, although he evidently struggled to collect his fee farm, and was forced to go to law against the bailiffs of several of the hundreds in his bailiwick.
It is difficult to place Chudleigh definitively in the factional struggle between his distant kinsman, Lord Bonville, and his feudal overlord, the earl of Devon, that troubled his county in the first half of the 1450s. As far as it is possible to tell, he managed to avoid taking sides and played no part in the campaigns of violence unleashed by either side; nor did he fall victim to reprisals similar to those suffered by (Sir) Philip Courtenay or Walter Ralegh*. Equally, it is possible that at the time of the earl’s open campaign against his enemy in 1455 Chudleigh’s health was already failing, for he died on 8 Feb. 1456. His heir was his 38-year-old son John, who survived his father by just nine years and died in 1465 without surviving issue. The Chudleigh estates then passed to John’s cousin Robert, the son of James Chudleigh’s younger brother William.