CHUTE, Chaloner I (1599-1659), of Sutton Court, Chiswick, Mdx. and The Vyne, Hants.

The Chute family were lords of the manor of Taunton in Somerset from the thirteenth century until the reign of Henry VIII when the main branch of the family re-located to Suffolk. Chute’s father was a lawyer and duchy of Lancaster official for the south east of England, and was returned as MP for Thetford in 1593. Part of Chute’s childhood was probably spent in Kensington, but soon afterwards the family again moved, this time to Essex. Chute maintained a family connexion with Middlesex through his mother, and with the royal court through his cousin, Sir Thomas Challoner, who was tutor to Prince Henry.24Chute, Hist. of The Vyne, 67-8. Chute followed his father into the law, entering the Middle Temple in 1613, after a brief stint at Cambridge University, and was called to the bar in 1623. He shared chambers with his father until 1626, and took pupils from the late 1630s onwards.25MT Mins. of Parl. ii. 572, 686, 689, 710, 713, 873, 926, 928. Chute was also employed by the Caroline government during the personal rule. In November 1635 he was appointed a commissioner to fine those who exported wool contrary to order; in February 1636 he was made a commissioner to execute the statute against the export of salt; and in June 1639 he was ordered, as a JP in Middlesex, to tender the oath of allegiance to Scotsmen living within the shire.26CSP Dom. 1635, p. 514; 1635-6, p. 240; 1639, p. 323; Coventry Docquets, 45.

During the 1640s, Chute rose to become one of the most eminent defence lawyers of his generation. He was assigned by the Lords to act as counsel on behalf of the king’s chief adviser, the 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†), on 1 Dec. 1640.27LJ iv. 102b. In February 1642 he was chosen to defend the attorney-general, Sir Edward Herbert*, against the impeachment charges brought by the Commons.28LJ iv. 591a. He successfully represented the impeached bishops by February 1642, arguing that they could not be tried under the act of praemunire, and he was presented with a silver tankard by John Warner, bishop of Rochester, for his efforts on their behalf.29LJ iv. 610b; Chute, Hist. of The Vyne, 71. Later in the same year he was named as a commissioner of array in Middlesex, and, in an ironic twist, he was thereafter called upon to defend Sir Richard Gurney, lord mayor of London, impeached by the House for publishing the commission in the City.30LJ v. 247b-248a. In 1643 Chute was chosen to join Archbishop Laud’s counsel.31Whitelocke, Mems. i. 224. These legal appointments had been thrust upon Chute, but they seem to have reflected his own pro-royalist sentiments during the early 1640s. For example, his fellow lawyer, Bulstrode Whitelocke*, noted in September 1644 that Chute had helped him to acquire a lease of Lord Paulet’s lands at Chiswick from the Committee for Sequestrations, ‘which Mr Chute contrived for the good of the Lord Paulet and of Whitelocke’.32Whitelocke, Diary, 153. Despite such inclinations, Chute managed not to alienate the parliamentarians, and he was twice nominated by the Commons as a commissioner of the great seal in October 1646 and January 1647, although the appointment was not ratified by the Lords.33Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 104, 122; Add. 31116, pp. 593-4, 609. He was associated with the Presbyterian interest in the summer of 1647, acting as counsel for the ‘Eleven Members’ in July, and on 2 Aug. 1647, during the ‘forcing of the Houses’, he was once again nominated as one the commissioners of the great seal, to serve for one month.34Harington’s Diary, 42, 46; Whitelocke, Diary, 196; CJ v. 265a. The army’s march on London a few days later presumably prevented him from taking up his post even for that short time span.

Chute continued to defend underdogs, both publicly and privately, through the upheavals of the second civil war and the English Revolution. In February 1648 he was appointed counsel for the Presbyterian 4th earl of Lincoln, and in April he was ordered to act on behalf of the royalist Sir John Gayer, who faced charges of high treason.35LJ x. 40a, 219b. Later in the year he was one of a consortium which mortgaged lands in Norfolk from the Catholic peer, Thomas, 21st or 14th earl of Arundel.36Norf. RO, How 159. In September Chute was acting for the royalist marquess of Ormond, in his attempt to secure the money promised to him by Parliament the previous year.37Bodl. Carte 30, f. 347. In February 1649 Chute defended the 1st duke of Hamilton, accused of treason for his part in the second civil war.38Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 532. Again, friends in Parliament seem to have turned a blind eye to Chute’s royalist proclivities. In January 1648 he had assisted Whitelocke in his private legal matters, working with Edmund Prideaux I*, and a year later he feasted with Prideaux, Whitelocke and Sir Thomas Widdrington*.39Whitelocke, Diary, 204, 206. He was also encouraged to collaborate with the new regime. In June 1649 he was appointed, with Whitelocke and others, to consider reform of Chancery, and in August he was one of the senior lawyers invited to Prideaux’s house at Kew, where they were ‘consulted about new rules and reformation of the proceedings in chancery, and were highly feasted’.40Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 89; Whitelocke, Diary, 245. Chute’s reputation as a lawyer was matched by his prosperity. By 1649 he had purchased the lease of Sutton Court in Chiswick, which had belonged to the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, and shortly afterwards he acquired from Lord Sandys the palatial mansion of The Vyne, in Hampshire.41VCH Mdx. vii. 71; Chute, Hist. of The Vyne, 137. In October 1650 he married, as his second wife, the daughter of the 3rd Lord North, who was also the widow of the 13th Lord Dacre. One of his new wife’s kinsmen, Roger North, noted Chute’s reluctance to exert himself: ‘If he had a fancy not to have the fatigue of business, but to pass his time in pleasures after his own humour, he would tell his clerk, “Tell the people I will not practise this term”, and was as good as his word ... and his practise nothing shrunk by the discontinuance’.42R. North, The Life of the Right Honourable Francis North, Baron of Guilford (1742), 13.

After the dissolution of the Rump Parliament, Chute seems to have lost his appetite for public business, whether legal or political. In July 1653 he was chosen to defend John Lilburne, but evaded the responsibility by immediately leaving town for his country estate.43Perfect Diurnall (11-18 July 1653); Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 77. In the following October he declined the post of commissioner of the great seal, allegedly fearing that the burden of work would fall to him.44HMC Var. ii. 269. Nor did the protectorate, established in December 1653, appeal to Chute. He did not involve himself in further plans for the reform of chancery, despite the hopes of John Thurloe* and others close to Cromwell.45Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 249. The author of the satirical ‘Royall Game at Picquet’ was accurate in portraying Chute as saying of the Cromwellian regime ‘there’s such cheating, I’ll play no longer’.46‘The Royall Game at Picquet’ (2 Sept. 1656) (E.886.4). Instead, Chute spent much of the mid-1650s remodelling The Vyne, adding an innovative portico, developing the gardens, and furnishing the interior with works of art acquired from the royal collection.47Chute, Hist. of The Vyne, 137; E113/10. He and his son, Chaloner Chute II*, purchased the castle and park of Devizes in Wiltshire for £7,200 in 1656.48Waylen, Hist. of Devizes, 302-3. In the same period, Chute also became more closely involved with the governance of the Middle Temple, and proved an active treasurer for the year from November 1655.49MT Mins. of Parl. iii. 1084, 1086-7, 1089, 1090-1. When in London, he associated with important legal colleagues such as Whitelocke and William Ellys*, and the dilettante, Thomas Povey*.50Whitelocke, Diary, 442. Chute was returned as MP for Middlesex in the hotly contested election of August 1656 in which his son was also a candidate.51Clarke Pprs. iii. 70. Chute senior was excluded by the protectoral council before he could take his seat, and thereafter signed the remonstrance in protest.52Clarke Pprs. iii. 73; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 280. He again retired to the country, and was resident at The Vyne when visited by the Roman Catholic John Arundell of Lanherne, travelling between London and Dorset in January 1657.53Cornw. RO, AR/12/30, unfol.

Chute was admitted to the second sitting of Parliament in January 1658. In contrast to his lethargic attitude towards public affairs in recent years, on his arrival in the Commons Chute engaged with legal business with enthusiasm. His first committee appointment (21 Jan.), was to review the oath taken by the clerks of the House, and he was added to the committee of privileges on the same day.54CJ vii. 579a, 580b. He was appointed to committees on the registration of births, marriages and deaths, and on a bill against non-residence by the heads of university colleges (22 Jan.), and on 26 January was named to consider the preservation of the records of Parliament.55CJ vii. 581a, 588a. Two days later he was named to a committee to attend Cromwell concerning the public revenue, in response to the protector’s speech to Parliament.56CJ vii. 589a. During the debate on 2 February on the manner of addressing the Other House, Chute sought to reach a compromise by suggesting that the matter would be more easily decided after a conference between the two Houses, and, somewhat surprisingly, this proposal was backed by the commonwealthsman, Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, who may have seen the somewhat naïve proposal as a chance to muddy the political waters still further.57Burton’s Diary ii. 421. Chute’s final committee appointment (3 Feb.), again concerned the bill on marriage.58CJ vii. 591a.

Chute was re-elected for Middlesex in January 1659 and was joined in Parliament by his son, who was returned on the family interest for Devizes.59Clarke Pprs. iii. 174. Chute was unanimously chosen Speaker on the first day of the session (27 Jan.), despite his protestations of increasing bodily ‘infirmity’.60CJ vii. 594a; Burton’s Diary iii. 3. He seems to have been a compromise candidate, who could command the respect of all parties. His appointment clearly appealed to the republican Hesilrige, who offered to second his nomination, and later in debate encouraged him to think of himself, in the role of Speaker, as ‘now the greatest man in England’.61Burton’s Diary iii. 4, 18. Chute’s old friend, Bulstrode Whitlocke, praised him as ‘an excellent orator, a man of great parts and generosity whom many doubted that he would not join with the protector’s party, but he did heartily’. The royalist agents also thought him a good choice.62CCSP iv. 139-141. His former colleague, Sir Edward Hyde*, even asserted that Chute ‘would never have subjected himself to that place if he had not entertained some hope of being able to serve the king’.63CCSP iii. 464-5. Chute was not, however, an impressive Speaker. On 27 January he admitted to being ‘ignorant of your orders’ and unable to adjudicate ‘when I see both sides so confident, in different orders’, on 1 February he was upbraided by MPs for his mishandling of Henry Neville’s* case, and on 10 February he appealed to MPs to clarify their arguments over the Recognition of the protector, for ‘it is hard for me to understand your sense’.64Burton’s Diary iii. 6, 18-20, 195. After less than two months in the chair, his health broke down. On 8 March, following the intense debate on the sitting of Irish and Scottish MPs, Chute ‘through much weakness sank in the chair’, forcing an adjournment.65Henry Cromwell Corresp., ed. Gaunt, 469, 472-3. On the 9th he attended the chamber to beg the House to discharge him, or at least to grant him leave of absence.66CJ vii. 612a; Burton’s Diary iii. 90-2. On 17 March the Commons ordered a delegation of MPs to attend Chute at his house.67CJ vii. 615a. Whitelocke thought that this ‘great honour’ was a sign of ‘the affection of the House’ towards him.68Whitelocke, Diary, 509. On 19 March Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* reported that he and others had visited Sutton Court, where they had found Chute to be gravely ill, but still able to send his thanks to the House for their care of him, with assurances that ‘he values their service higher than his own life’.69CJ vii. 616a. Chute died on 14 April, and the news was reported to the Commons the next morning.70CJ vii. 640a; Vis. London, 163 In his will, last altered in July 1657, Chute requested to be buried at Chiswick beside his first wife. The bulk of the estate, including The Vyne, was left to his eldest son, Chaloner. The lease of Sutton Court passed to Lady Dacre as her jointure, though her right to it was challenged by the dean and chapter of St Paul’s after the Restoration.71PROB11/303, f. 147; CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 502-3, 596-7.