CHUTE, Chaloner II (1631-66), of The Vyne, Hants.

Chute’s life and career was very much shaped by family traditions and connexions. He was the third generation to enter the law, though he was by no means as eminent as his father, the celebrated defence counsel, and he was married to the daughter of his father’s second wife. Chute stood unsuccessfully for election in Middlesex with Chute senior in August 1656.9Clarke Pprs. iii. 70. In the same year father and son purchased the lease to Devizes castle and park, and Chute was returned as MP for the borough for Richard Cromwell’s Parliament three years later.10Waylen, Devizes, 294, 302-3. His service in the Commons was limited to a handful of committees and one tellership. On 28 Jan. he was named to the committee for elections, and he was appointed to a committee on a petition from Lincolnshire on 2 Mar.11CJ vii. 594b, 609a. On 19 Mar. he joined Sir George Boothe as teller in favour of putting the question for the adjournment of the debate on the right of Scottish MPs to sit.12CJ vii. 616a. In early April, Chute was named to the committee of Irish affairs (1 Apr.), the committee to consider ‘transacting’ with the Other House (6 Apr.), and a committee to investigate the reasons for the arrest of the Protestant 23rd or 16th earl of Arundel, and for withholding of his estates in England (8 Apr.).13CJ vii. 623b, 627a, 632a. The last appointment may have been prompted by the interest of Chute’s father, who had mortgaged some of the Arundel estates in 1648.14Norf. RO, How 159.

The death of his father in April 1659 left Chute with a number of land disputes. He was in conflict with Lady Dacre and the dean and chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral over Sutton Court, and after the Restoration the Devizes estate was confiscated and returned to its pre-war owners, after a lengthy legal dispute.15CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 502-3; PA, Main Pprs. 3 Dec. 1660; HMC 7th Rep., 136, 145, 179; VCH Wilts. x. 247. Chute was involved in a double return on his election for Haslemere in 1661 and was unseated after only three days in Parliament. He died aged 36 in 1666, allegedly a victim of the Great Fire of London, and was buried next to his father in a family plot at Chiswick.16Chute, Hist. of The Vyne, 78. His son Chaloner stood unsuccessfully for election in a Wiltshire borough in 1685 and the family was next represented in Parliament in 1737.