CHAWORTH, Dr Richard (?1598-1672), of Wiverton, Notts, Bishops Cannings, Wilts. and Richmond, Surr.

The Chaworths arrived in England in the eleventh century, but highlighted their French origins by retaining the traditional spelling of the family name (Cadurcis or Chaources) until the early seventeenth century.19Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 123-8; (Harl. Soc. n. ser., v), 1; L. Chaworth-Musters, ‘Some account of the family called Chaworth’, Trans. Thoroton Soc. vii. 119-38. They were prominent gentry from at least the fourteenth century, when they were first represented in Parliament. Their status was further enhanced by the career of Richard Chaworth’s elder brother, Sir George Chaworth†, an equerry to James I who in 1621 served as ambassador to Brussels and was made a gentleman of the privy chamber. Sir George sat for his native Nottinghamshire in the 1621 Parliament, and for Arundel in 1624, on the interest of Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Arundel. He was made a viscount in 1628.20HP Commons 1604-1629.

In October 1621, Richard Chaworth matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, which was already a stronghold of Arminianism.21Al. Ox. He was recorded as aged 18, but since he graduated eight months later, and is elsewhere given a baptism date in 1598, this may have been a mistake.22Corresp. of Bishop Duppa, 4-7. In 1622 he contributed a poem to the collection commemorating the death of the scholar Sir Henry Saville.23Ultima Linea Savilli (1622), sig. Ev. Having graduated, in 1629 Chaworth was appointed to a faculty lectureship, allowing him to remain at the college without taking holy orders. In 1630 and 1632 he contributed further poems to university collections.24Britanniae Natalis (1630), 54-5; Musarum Oxoniensis (1633), sig. 3. Proctor in 1632-3, he was an influential figure within his college and tutor to some of its more prominent students, including Paul Bayning, 2nd Viscount Bayning (step-son of secretary of state Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester), upon whose premature death in 1638 Chaworth published a poem in yet another university collection.25Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 141; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 8; Death Repeal’d (1638), 49-50. At a date unknown he married Mary Croft, niece of the dean of Christ Church, Brian Duppa.26Corresp. of Bishop Duppa, 4-7.

During the 1630s Chaworth established himself as a civil lawyer.27Al. Ox. In 1637 he was appointed to the prestigious post of chancellor of the diocese of London, under the bishop, William Juxon, who was also lord treasurer and who had been a key figure at Oxford until joining the episcopate in 1633. Following Duppa’s elevation to the bishopric of Chichester, in May 1640 Chaworth also gained the chancellorship of that diocese.28W. Suss. RO, Ep.I/15/1, loose bundles, 1640-67; Acts Dean and Chapter Chichester, 266.

This latter connection was evidently the means by which in the autumn of 1640 he was returned to Parliament for Midhurst, a borough which traditionally fell under the influence of the Catholic Viscount Montagu of Cowdray. Following a dispute, his election was provisionally recognized on 6 January 1641.29CJ ii. 63b; Procs. LP ii. 121. While the matter was being investigated, it came to the attention of the House during debate on church government that Chaworth and fellow diocesan chancellors Dr Thomas Eden* and Dr George Parry* were sitting in the chamber having taken the so-called ‘Etcetera Oath’, controversially imposed by Convocation the previous year, a discovery which led ‘fiery spirits’ like Henry Marten* to demand their withdrawal (1 Feb.). The trio confessed they had taken the oath, but sought to be allowed to remain in the chamber.30Procs. LP, ii. 333, 336. Chaworth survived this onslaught, but his election was challenged by William Cawley I* – subsequently a regicide – who claimed to have been the choice of the burgesses, rather than merely the bailiffs as in Chaworth’s case. On 15 February the Commons recognised Cawley as the second Member for Midhurst and disabled Chaworth from sitting.31CJ ii. 86a; Procs. LP, ii. 451, 453.

Thereafter Chaworth may have returned to Oxford, or he may have accompanied Duppa to Salisbury, where the latter was made bishop in December 1641. Chaworth probably joined the king soon after he left London in the wake of the attempted arrest of the Five Members in January 1642. In early May Chaworth was at Windsor, from where he conducted business as judge of the Sussex vice-admiralty court. In a letter to one Mr Bragg in Sussex, he expressed concern that, following the recent exclusion of bishops and disqualification of clergy from sitting in Parliament, his work would be undermined: ‘my surrogates being clergy will be excepted against, seeing it is voted they shall have no judicature in temporal matters’. He was perturbed about what would happen ‘if the times persist so bad that the king must be deprived of such instruments’.32W. Suss. RO, Ep.I/55/24. By 9 July Charles I had authorised Chaworth to raise loans and contributions from colleges and individuals in Oxford, and by 11 July Chaworth had collected £654 from All Souls College alone.33C.T. Martin, Catalogue of the Archives in the Muniment Rooms of All Souls’ College (1877), 316, 384. The accounts of John Ashburnham* reveal that Chaworth travelled to Cambridge on a similar mission, and that he helped raise over £10,000 during the early months of the civil war.34[J. Ashburnham], A Narrative by John Ashburnham (1830), ii, appendix, pp. xviii, xxxvii, xxxix.

From 1643 Chaworth’s movements are uncertain. He may have returned to the family seat at Wiverton, where his nephew, an active royalist, played host to the queen on her return from Yorkshire (June 1643), and to Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice.35Chaworth-Musters, ‘Family called Chaworth’, 67-77; CP. He appears to have been in Oxford for at least some of 1645, however, since his wife was buried in the choir of Oxford cathedral in late November.36Wood, City of Oxford, ii. 550. From 1646, the year of his mother’s death, Chaworth evidently lived at Bishops Cannings, near Devizes in Wiltshire, where he leased the manor, lordship and hundred from Bishop Duppa (although the confiscation of ecclesiastical lands presumably compromised this arrangement).37CP; Freeman, Commonplace Bk. of Sir Edward Bayntun, 18. Probably removed from Christ Church by the parliamentarian visitors of Oxford University, Chaworth was mentioned briefly in their records in July 1649.38Reg. Visitors Univ. Oxford, 252. During the 1650s he lived with Duppa at Richmond in Surrey.39Corresp. of Bishop Duppa, 4-7, 65, 75, 112, 186; C54/3995/27; Northants. RO, IC328.

It is not clear what part, if any, Chaworth played in royalist plotting, although his kinsman Henry Mallory was involved in the abortive plot organised in 1657 and 1658 by John Stapley*. At the Restoration, Chaworth resumed his duties as chancellor of Chichester under Bishop Henry King, another former Christ Church man and a friend of Duppa, and as chancellor of London, under Bishop Gilbert Sheldon, posts which he held respectively until 1667 and 1663. Remaining in the service of Sheldon, and living in the parish of St Margaret’s, Westminster, Chaworth was then vicar-general to the archbishopric of Canterbury, in which capacity he played an important part in the Sheldon’s installation ceremony at Lambeth in August 1663.40C54/4055/1; Evelyn Diary ed. de Beer, iii. 362; CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 135; 1670, p. 556. Shortly afterwards he was awarded a knighthood.41Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 239. Chaworth did not again serve in the Commons, and appears to have opposed regular sitting of the Cavalier Parliament. In June 1664, he confided to his friend Sir Justinian Isham his opposition to plans to recall the Parliament, which had been prorogued in mid-May.42Northants. RO, IC562.

Chaworth’s enduring friendship with Duppa was reflected in his acting as a trustee and executor. On his death the 1662 the bishop left him his house in Richmond, while the estate of Duppa’s wife was divided between Chaworth and his kinsman Henry Mallory.43PROB11/308/196; PROB11/318/424. In 1663 or 1664 he married Lady Sophia Bertie, daughter of Robert Bertie, 1st earl of Lindsey, one of his friends among the nobility.44Northants. RO, IC500; .

Chaworth died in November 1672, and was buried at Richmond.45St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, par. reg. In his will, he asked to be interred ‘without any sermon or secular pomp, but after the common decency of the Church of England’. He left bequests to many churches with which he had been connected, while his nephew, John Chaworth, 2nd Viscount Chaworth, received marbles which Chaworth had purchased in Florence (the only indication that he had travelled abroad), as well as ‘a cornelian-seal of an emperor’s head which was this king’s when he was a prince’ (a sign of his closeness to the royal court). Mention of books testifies to wide-ranging interests in history, geography and law, while friends who benefited included former canons of Christ Church, Dr Thomas Lockey and John Mylles*, who had been judge-advocate to the New Model army in the 1640s, but who was chancellor of the diocese of Norwich after the Restoration.46PROB11/342/450; s.v. ‘John Mylles’. A monument was erected in Richmond church to honour Chaworth’s probity, prudence, erudition, and integrity, and as a memorial to his devotion to God, the king, and the church, which he had served faithfully for most of his life.47Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. i. 70, 81; Manning, Bray, Surr. i. 426, 431.