CHAUNCE, Roger II, of Reigate, Surr.

Chaunce evidently numbered among his kinsmen three other parliamentary burgesses returned for Reigate during our period, although he commanded far more influence than them, and, indeed, the majority of Members who sat for the borough. He first appears in 1410 as a feoffee-to-uses for property formerly held by John Pope II in West Hoathley, Sussex. He subsequently became a trustee of land in the Surrey manors of Newdigate and Nutfield; and in August 1427 he witnessed a deed in Reigate, where he seems to have spent most, if not all, of his life. According to the tax returns of April 1428, which he helped to compile in his official capacity as a collector, he was then living in the borough; and it was either he or more probably a kinsman of the same name who conveyed a messuage there to trustees nearly 40 years later.1Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), no. 2797; CP25(1) 232/69/18, 34; CCR, 1429-36, p. 106; Feudal Aids, v. 111; O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. i. 305.