It has long been a Chawner family tradition to talk about a Welsh connection and the descent from Welsh princes and princesses, and a link to Thomas Chaloner the regicide. Unfortunately no one has ever conclusively proved there is a Welsh connection, or link to Thomas Chaloner.

To search for the answers to these questions I began with what we know. There are quite a few pedigree charts showing the descent of the Chaloners of Guisborough from Welsh princes and princesses, so that part must be true and some of these pedigrees go back to before 1066 and William the Conqueror.

1. There is no need to go back as far as 1066 in order to prove that the ancestors of the Chaloners of Guisborough were Welsh, I start with David Chaloner of Denbigh who was born in 1410. David married Rose Anwyl daughter of Ithel Anwyl ab y Dai and Gwenllian ap Llywelyn.

On her mothers side Rose was the great-great granddaughter of Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales 1212 - 1246 styled Prince of Gwynedd from 1240 to 1246. He was the first ruler to claim the title Prince of Wales. His mother was Joan of England who was the illegitimate daughter of King John of England 1166 - 1216 and Clementina.

2. The son of David Chaloner of Denbigh and Rose Anwyl was Rhys Chaloner of Denbighshire who was a descendant of Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales and King John of England. He was born about 1440 in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales and married Ursula Peake (daughter of Richard Peake).

3. The son of Rhys Chaloner and Ursula Peake was Thomas Chaloner who was born in 1466 in Mostyn, Flint, Wales. He married Agnes Thickness.

4. The son of Thomas Chaloner and Agnes Thickness was Roger Chaloner who was born in 1493 in Mostyn, Flint, Wales.

Roger Chaloner was a Welsh nobleman who moved over to England with Henry Tudor when he became King Henry VII of England. He became a Mercer of London and married Margaret Middleton (daughter of Richard Middleton) and died about 1550.

5. The son of Roger Chaloner and Margaret Middleton was Thomas Chaloner who was born in 1521 in Guisborough, Yorkshire, England. He was knighted after fighting in England's defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie, near Musselburgh in 1547 and was granted the Manor of Steeple Claydon. He died about 1565. He married Ethelreda Frodsham.

This is where it gets messy and raises more questions than answers because there is more than one school of thought and more than one scenario.

6. The son of Sir Thomas Chaloner Kt and Ethelred Frodsham was Thomas Chaloner who was born in 1561 in Guisborough, Yorkshire. He inherited his father's title and estate at Steeple Claydon in 1565. He died in 1615.

His first wife was Elizabeth Fleetwood. There were 4 sons, William, Edward, Thomas & James. He took for his second wife Judith Blount on 10 July 1604 at St. Peter-le-Poer, London; they had 2 sons, Henry & Charles.

He was a distinguished naturalist and was selected by James I to superintend the education of his son, Prince Henry, Prince of Wales. For his services he was presented with the sum of £4,000, as a free gift. On visiting Rome at the end of the 16th century he noticed that the discolouring of leaves on trees near the Pope's alum works resembled those near his own home in Guisborough. He also realised the clay of both regions was similar too. He returned from Rome with some key Italian workers, who knew all the processes of alum manufacture much to the anger of the Pope who issued a curse on Chaloner and excommunicated him. When Charles I became King he confiscated much of their estate because of the alum mined there and set up a syndicate for distributing its wealth much to the wrath of the Chaloner family who were disposed of the wealth the alum created. This set the seeds for two of his sons' anger and retribution that was to follow at the trial of the unfortunate King in 1649 during the Civil War.

7. Thomas, was the third son of the younger Sir Thomas Chaloner Kt and Elizabeth Fleetwood and was M.P. for Richmond in Yorkshire in the Long Parliament of 1645-1653 and sat as a judge at the trial of King Charles, and was one of the signatories of the death warrant. At the restoration in 1660 he went into exile in Holland while his brother James committed suicide by drinking poison prepared by his mistress.

Thomas Chaloner the Regicide was born in 1595 in Guisborough, Yorkshire. He died in bed on 20 Aug 1661 in Middelburg, Netherlands. He had married Miss Southabie who belonged to an old Yorkshire family in 1624 in Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire. Miss Southabie was born in 1597.

8. The son of Thomas Chaloner and Miss Southabie is listed, but without a Christian name in the late Lord Gisborough's card index. There was at least one son of the marriage and it seems probable that there were two or more. The boy listed in the Pedigree of the Chaloners of Guisborough may be John Chaloner (Chawner) born 1630, the ancestor of the revered poet Rupert Chawner Brooke.

The Chawner name adopted by John Chaloner had long been a variation of the Chaloner name throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and was used interchangeably and may have been used to distance themselves from their Roundhead connections.

9. The second son of the younger Sir Thomas Chaloner Kt and Judith Blount was Charles Chaloner born in about 1608. Some pedigrees record his death in 1617 while another pedigree says he married Anne White and died in 1657. He did not leave a Will; instead a memorandum of his intentions was drawn up.

10. The son of Charles Chaloner and Anne White was William Chaloner (1644-1719), Squire and former debt-ridden Lord of the Manor of Steeple Claydon who would sell the rump of the estate to Sir John Verney in 1705.

Those who say that Charles Chaloner could not be the father of William as he died in 1617 aged 9 put forward the scenario that William Chaloner was the second son of Thomas Chaloner M,P., and Miss Southabie who would have been 47 when he was born.

Judith Blount was the daughter of William Blount of London & widow of John Gregory of Hull. She descended from the Blounts of Mangersfield, Gloucestershire.

I could find no evidence that Judith could have been related to the Blounts of Blount's Hall and Barton Blount, Staffordshire. She became stepmother of Thomas Chaloner (regicide), when she became his father's second wife.

Could it have been possible that Thomas Chaloner the Regicide also owned property around Muse Lane? There has always been a hard connection left wanting between John Chaloner of Boylestone born 1630 and the Steeple Claydon Chaloners. Let's suppose John came up from Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire where the Regicide had property settled on him by his father before his lands were confiscated following the Restoration. The problem with this is that there is no proof.

During the Civil War both parliament and royalist forces were garrisoned in churches and they both seemed to have delighted in burning parish records. That is why there are gaps in the records.

With the other line of enquiry, Henry Chawner the goldsmith of Newton Valence, Hampshire whose line claimed to be of Welsh descent through the marriage of John Chawner of Boylestone (1705-1784) & Ann Chaloner of Duffield (1710-1788). It is my strongest belief that John Chawner (1705-1784) is descended from John Chaloner c 1630 but his wife Ann Chaloner is descended from Thomas Chaloner of Duffield and not of Denbigh and proves once and for all that the ancestors of the Chawner silversmiths are not descended from the Chaloners of Denbighshire on Ann Chaloner's side and nor do they have a Welsh connection on Ann Chaloner's side. The silversmiths were however descended from Thomas Chaloner of Duffield, a separate family with no Welsh connections.

If the descendants of Henry Chawner the goldsmith believe there is a Welsh connection in their branch of the family it can only be through John Chaloner of Muse Lane c 1630 and in turn they must believe he was the son of Thomas Chaloner M.P., the regicide, because there are no Welsh ancestors on Ann Chaloner's side of the family.

Due to the lack of supporting evidence I cannot definitely say that John Chaloner (Chawner) c 1630 is the regicide's son, and the question raises more questions than answers. It also seems unlikely that Judith Blount was related to the Blounts of Blount's Hall and Barton Blount, Staffordshire. Then there is the problem with Charles Chaloner, did he die in 1617 or 1657, was he the father of William Chaloner, or was William the son of Thomas Chaloner the Regicide as well?

The evidence does not go against family oral tradition passed from one generation to the next in just about all the branches of the family that John Chaloner was the Regicide's son but with no proof it is impossible to confirm and verify so it remains to be disproved, or proved depending on what you believe.

Copyright © 2017 Graham Charles Woodward