CHUTE (CHOWTE), Philip (by 1506-67), of Horne Place, Appledore, Kent.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1506, s. of Charles Chute of (?Malling), Kent by a da. of John Crispe of Birchington, Isle of Thanet. m. (1) by 1537, Joan, da. of Thomas Ensing of Winchelsea, Suss., wid. of Peter Master (d.1526/32), 2s. 1da.; (2) Elizabeth, da. of one Girling of Wrentham, Suff., 1s.; (3) by Sept. 1546, Margaret (d. 28 Sept. 1555), da. of Sir Alexander Culpeper of Bedgebury, Kent, 5s. 1da.3

Offices Held

Jurat, Winchelsea 1527; yeoman of the guard by 1538-45 or later; capt. Camber castle, Suss. 1540-d.; bailiff, manor of Frostenden, Suff. 4 Mar. 1550-d.; searcher, Chichester, Suss. 18 July 1550, comptroller of customs Apr. 1557-64 or later.4

Biography

Philip Chute heads the pedigree of that family supplied at the visitation of Kent in 1530, but its earlier right to bear arms is implied by the gloss that Chute was awarded a canton or augmentation of his coat, in the form of the ‘lion of England’, for his valour as standard bearer to the men at arms of the King’s band at Boulogne in 1544. Of his own lineage there is only the dubious version which would give him forbears who had moved from Somerset to Sussex during the 15th century.5

Chute’s military record can be traced from his first appearance as a yeoman of the guard in 1536, by way of his captaincy of Camber castle and his service before Boulogne under the command of Sir Edward Rogers, to his preparations at Camber against invasion in 1557-8. It is the combination of this career with a civil one at Winchelsea and his kinship with Sir Thomas Cheyne, lord warden of the Cinque Ports, which explains his return to Henry VIII’s last two Parliaments. Within a few years of becoming a freeman and jurat he married the widowed daughter of Thomas Ensing, with whom between 1529 and 1532 he was a defendant to a claim against her former husband’s estate. Ensing was returned for Winchelsea in 1529 and (probably) 1536, and either he or Chute could have sat in 1539, when the Winchelsea names are lost, before Chute secured his two known returns. It was with a future Member for Hastings, John Isted, that in 1545 Chute and two others were ordered by the Privy Council to restore to Antonio Macuelo goods taken from a Spanish ship by the captain of their own ship. His appointment in the customs at Chichester following the death of John Rowland may imply that he also replaced Rowland as a Member for Winchelsea in the Parliament of 1547, but no by-election is recorded. He probably helped towards his uncle Henry Crispe’s election to the first Parliament of Mary’s reign.6

During the last 20 years of his life Chute bought manors in Kent and Sussex which he settled on the children of his third marriage. By his will of 1 Mar. 1566 he asked to be buried at Appledore and left money for distribution among the poor there and at Winchelsea, Malling in Kent and Wrentham in Suffolk. After providing for his children, including the future poet Anthony Chute, other relatives and servants, he instructed his executors to sell his house and land at Mereworth and to divide the proceeds between the children of his brother Anthony, and to dispose of property near Faversham for the benefit of his servants. He died on 5 Apr. 1567 leaving an eldest son Thomas aged 30 years and more. Chaloner Chute, Speaker of the Commons in 1659, was a descendant of Philip Chute’s brother Anthony.7

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. On the return (C219/18B/145) only his christian name is legible. Add. 34150, f. 138 gives his surname.
  • 2. Rye precedents bk.
  • 3. Date of birth estimated from first reference. A.J. Pearman, ‘The Chutes of Bethersden, Appledore and Hinxhill’, Arch. Cant. xviii. 55-71; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. lxxiv), 5; Berry, Hants Gen. 117; C1/607/17; 142/145/17; LP Hen. VIII, xxi.
  • 4. Winchelsea hundred ct. bk. 2. f. 30; LP Hen. VIII, xiii, xv, xix, xx; Soc. Antiquaries, iv. 265; CPR, 1553, p. 346; 1563-6, p. 237; E122/38/8, 21; Rep. R. Comm. of 1552 (Archs. of Brit. Hist. and Culture iii), 134.
  • 5. Berry, 117.
  • 6. LP Hen. VIII, xix; APC, i. 256, 264; iii. 417; iv. 73, 144; Winchelsea hundred ct. bk. 2, f. 30; C1/607/17.
  • 7. LP Hen. VIII, xx; CPR, 1547-8, p. 143; 1550-3, p. 413; 1563-6, p. 143; 1566-9, pp. 131, 389; 1569-72, p. 285; PCC 3 Sheffelde; C142/145/17; DNB (Chute or Chewt, Anthony).