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  with this family, joined with the grievances of his own, led him to adopt the side of the parliament during the civil wars. In 1648 he was elected member of parliament for Aldborough, to fill a vacancy created by death (Commons' Journals, 12 Sept. 1645). In 1647 he was appointed secretary to the committee for the reformation of the university of Oxford. In the following year he was named one of the king's judges, and was present at the first three sittings of the court, but from that time abstained, and was not there when sentence was pronounced against the king (, Journal of the High Court of Justice). A more congenial appointment was offered him in 1652, when his wife's cousin, Lord Fairfax, to whom the Isle of Man had been granted by the parliament, named him one of the three commissioners to settle his affairs in that island (17 Aug. 1652). In the dedication to Lord Fairfax of his ‘Short Treatise of the Isle of Man,’ Chaloner says: ‘We gave your lordship an account in writing, as well as by word of mouth, of our proceedings there, as in relation to your revenues and the government of the country, so also what our actions were in pursuance of your pious intentions for the promotion of religion and learning.’ He goes on to say that he himself ‘having made a more than ordinary inquisition into the state of the island,’ now offers it to his patron. The preface is dated 1 Dec. 1653, but the book itself was not published till three years later. In 1658 Chaloner was appointed governor of the island. When Monck marched against Lambert, Chaloner attempted to secure the Isle of Man for the parliamentary party, but was himself seized by the partisans of the army and imprisoned in Peel Castle (Petition of his son Edmond Chaloner, Historical MSS. Commission, 7th Rep. 147). ‘During his imprisonment,’ says the petition, ‘being of a tender and weak constitution, he took his death sickness, whereof he shortly after died before the Act of Indemnity passed.’ He left antiquarian manuscripts, which passed into the possession of John Vincent. Nothing is known of them after Vincent's death in 1671.



CHALONER, THOMAS, the elder (1521–1565), diplomatist and author, eldest son of Roger Chaloner, citizen and mercer of London, a member of an old Welsh family, was born in London, probably in the parish of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, in 1521. It is conjectured that he studied for a time at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was also for a time at Oxford. In 1540 he accompanied Sir Thomas Knyvet's embassy to the court of Charles V, was well received by the emperor, went with him to Algiers, and very nearly lost his life on the coast of Barbary in 1541 (, Principall Navigations, 1810, ii. 210). On his return to England Chaloner became clerk of the privy council. He was M.P. for Wigan 1545, for Lancashire 1547, and for Knaresborough 1555. Somerset took him into favour, and in 1547 Chaloner accompanied him to Scotland, fought at the battle of Pinckie, and was knighted on the battle-field. He was engaged in procuring evidence against Somerset's brother and rival, Lord Seymour, in 1548–9; was one of the witnesses against Bonner (1549) and Gardiner (1551); was granted the lands belonging to Guisborough priory, Yorkshire (31 Oct. 1550); and on 10 May 1551 was one of the commissioners nominated to negotiate with the envoys of the queen of Scots regarding debateable land on the border of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, proceedings which led to the treaty of Norham (10 June). He fulfilled similar functions on 8 March 1551–2, negotiating another treaty with Scotland 24 Sept. 1552, and received from Edward VI a grant of lands at St. Bees in Cumberland in 1553. At the end of Edward's reign he went with Dr. Wotton and Sir William Pickering on an embassy to France, but was immediately recalled on Mary's accession. Although a protestant, Chaloner was not excluded from public employment under Queen Mary. He was sent to Scotland in February 1555–6; had a grant of the manor of Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire, 13 Aug. 1557, and on 12 Jan. 1557–8 was directed to provide transport for the English troops proceeding to Dunkirk. Further lands at Guisborough were also assigned him on 16 July 1558. On the accession of Elizabeth, Chaloner was ordered to proceed to the emperor Ferdinand at Courtray, in order to detach him from the French alliance (safe-conduct, 26 Nov. 1558), and, after performing this service, visited Philip II, then at Brussels, in order to arrange for a peaceful treaty between the Spanish