king and England. He resided in the Low Countries till February 1559–60, and in October 1561 was sent as ambassador to Spain. The custom-house officials treated him with scant respect, demanding to search all his baggage on landing. He protested against the indignity, but received little sympathy either at Madrid or London. Although personally popular in Spain, he was unable to effect any very important settlement of the questions in dispute between that country and England, and was recalled in 1564. His brother Francis wrote on 7 Aug. 1565 that Chaloner was suffering from a violent fever, and intended to leave all his property to a bastard son. He died at a great house which he had built himself in Clerkenwell on 14 Oct. 1565, and was buried on 20 Oct. in St. Paul's Cathedral. At his funeral Sir William Cecil, lord Burghley, a lifelong friend, who wrote Latin verses to his memory, was chief mourner. He married, first, Joanna (d. 11 Jan. 1556–7), widow of Sir Thomas Legh; and secondly, Ethelreda, daughter of Edward Frodsham of Elton, Cheshire, who survived him, remarried to Edward Brocket of Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, and died 25 Dec. 1605. By his second wife he had an only son, Thomas [q. v.] His executors were Sir William Cecil, his second wife, and his son. Elizabeth added to his estates the manor of East Haddon, Northamptonshire, with the rectory of Cold Ashby in the same county (1561). In July 1565 he petitioned for a grant of Irish mines, but this request does not appear to have been granted.
Chaloner was the friend of Cheke, Haddon, and other learned scholars of his time. He was a poet in Latin and English, and received high commendation from Meres, Puttenham, and Henry Peacham. His printed works are as follows: 1. ‘A Bok of the Office of Servantes,’ 1543, translated from Gilb. Cognatus, and dedicated to Sir Henry Knyvet. 2. ‘An Homilie of Saint John Chrysostome … newely made out of Greke into latin by master Cheke, and englished by Tho. Chaloner,’ London, 1544. 3. ‘The praise of Folie … by Erasmus, englished by Sir Thomas Chaloner, knight,’ London, 1549. 4. ‘De Rep. Anglorum instauranda decem libri,’ with a Latin panegyric on Henry VIII (issued separately in 1600), and epigrams and epitaphs in Latin on other noted persons. Among the latter is an admirable elegy on Lady Jane Grey. To this work Burghley and other friends prefixed Latin verses in the author's praise. It was first published in 1579 by William Malim, master of St. Paul's School. The whole is in Latin verse, and was written in Spain between 25 Dec. 1562 and 21 July 1564. A woodcut of the author is prefixed.
To the first edition of the ‘Mirror of Magistrates’ Chaloner contributed an account of Mowbray's quarrel with Richard II, and in Park's ‘Antiquæ Nugæ’ (ii. 372) is a translation by him of Ovid's ‘Epistolæ Heroidum’ (Epist. 17).
Among the Hardwicke manuscripts at Wimpole Hall is an unprinted ‘Journal in Spain,’ 1562, attributed to Chaloner.
Chaloner's portrait was painted by Holbein and has been engraved by Hollar. Another portrait, with some half-legible Latin verses on it, belonging to Mrs. M. G. Edgar, was exhibited in the Exhibition of National Portraits at South Kensington in 1866 (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. x. 28).
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 235–7; Biog. Brit. (Kippis); Rymer's Fœdera, xv. passim; Cal. State Papers (Dom.), 1547–80; Haslewood's Mirror for Magistrates; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc.), pp. 123, 404; Granger's Biog. Hist.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. i. 31; Froude's History; Peacham's Compleat Gentleman (1562), p. 73.]
CHALONER, Sir THOMAS, the younger (1561–1615), naturalist, only son of Sir Thomas Chaloner the elder [q. v.], and Ethelreda Frodsham, was born in 1561. His father died in 1565. His mother marrying Edward Brocket (son of Sir John Brocket, knt., of Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire), he owed his education chiefly to his father's friend, William Cecil, lord Burghley, at St. Paul's School and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was esteemed for his poetical abilities, but took no degree. In 1579 he wrote the dedication to Lord Burghley of his father's poetical works. He began his travels in 1580, and became, especially in Italy, intimate with the learned men of the time. He returned home three years after to become a favourite at court, and married Elizabeth, daughter of his father's friend, William Fleetwood, recorder of London. In 1584 he published ‘A Short Discourse of the most rare Vertue of Nitre,’ London, 4to, b.l., a practical work in advance of the age. He was M.P. for St. Mawes in 1586 and for Lostwithiel in 1604. In 1588 he taught, at Christ Church, Oxford, Robert Dudley, son of the Earl of Leicester, and was knighted while serving with the English army in France in 1591. In 1596–7 he was again abroad, and his letters, chiefly from Florence, to the Earl of Essex and Anthony Bacon [q. v.] are in the Lambeth Library. He was exceedingly fond of natural history and philosophical in-