friend and publisher, issued a poem by Chute entitled ‘Beawtie dishonoured, written under the title of Shore’s Wife ’ (entered in the Stationers’ Registers, 16 June 1593). It is dedicated to Sir Richard Wingfield, knight; is described by the author ‘as the tlrst invention of my beginning muse;’ consists of 197 six-line stanzas; is not without promise in spite of its author’s plagiarisms; and tells, through the mouth of ‘her wronged ghost,’ the chequered story of Edward IV's mistress, Jane Shore. Harvey wrote enthusiastically of Chute's endeavour, and henceforth spoke of him as ‘Shore’s wife.’ But Thomas Churchyard [q. v.] had written a poem on the same subject, which was first published in the 1563 edition of the ‘Mirrour for Magistrates,' and Chute imitated Churchyard here and there without making an acknowledgment. On the publication of Chute's book Churchyard in self-defence straightway republished his old poem in his ‘Challenge,' 1593. To his three friends and dependents, Chute, Barnabe Barnes [q. v.], and John Thorius, Harvey dedicate his ‘Pierces Supererogation, or a new prayse of the old Asse,’ an attack on Nashe issued by Wolfe in 1593. An appendix to the book includes two prose letters, one sonnet, and a poem entitled ‘The Asses Figg,’ all by Chute and all vigorously following up Harvey’s attack on Nashe. Soon afterwards Chute died, but Nashe took his revenge on the dead man. In 1596 appeared his ‘Have with you to Saffron Walden,’ a biting satire directed against Harvey and his friends. Nashe denounces Chute for his ignorance, his poverty, and his indulgence in ‘posset-curd’ and tobacco. He died, his enemy mentions incidentally, of the dropsy, ‘as diuers printers that were at his burial certified mee,’ within a year and a half of the penning of his scurrilous appendix to Harvey’s tract.
Nashe describes Chute in one place as the author not only of ‘Shore’s Wife,’ but of ‘Procris and Cephalus, and a number of Pamphlagonian things more;' and elsewhere Nash states that Chute ‘hath kneaded and daub’d up a commedie called the Transformation of the Kin of Trinidadoes two daughters, Madame Tanachzea and the Nymphe Tobacco.’ The Stationers’ Registers for 22 Oct. 1593 contain the entry of a piece entitled ‘Procris and Cephalus devided into foure partes 'and licensed to John Wolfe (Arber, Transcrpt, ii. 639), and Chute has been generally credited with this work, although the book was not known to be extant. A unique copy of a poem bearing this title, issued by Wolfe in 1595, was, however, found in 1882 in Peterborough Cathedral library, but Thomas Edwards, and not Chute, is distinctly stated there to be the author. Harvey and Nashe both speak of Chute's skill in heraldry and in tricking out coats of arms.
[Nashe’s Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, is full of sarcastic references to Chute, and supplies hints for his biograph ; Harvey‘s Pierces Supererogation is of less biographical interest. See Dr. Grosart’s collections of Nashe's Works (iii.) and Harvey’s Works (ii.), both issued in the Huth Library; Corser’s Collectanea, iv. 390-6; Ritson’s English Poets; the Roxburghe Club’s reprint of Cephalus and Procris, edited by the Rev. W. E. Buckley (1882), pref. Brit. Mus. Cat.]
CHUTE, CHALONER (d. 1659), speaker of the House of Commons, was the son of Chaloner Chute of the Middle Temple, by his wife Ursula, daughter of John Chaloner of Fulham in the county of Middlesex. He was admitted a member of the Middle Temple and called to the bar. In 1656 he was returned as one of the knights of the shire for Middlesex, and, on not being allowed to take his seat, he, with a number of other members who had been similarly treated, published a remonstrance. To the following parliament of 1658-9 he was returned by the same constituency, and on the meeting of this parliament on 27 Jan. 1658-9 was chosen speaker, ‘although he besought the house to think of some other person more worthy and of better health and ability to supply that place’ (House of Commons’ Journals, 59-1). On 9 March 1658-9, in consequence of his failing health, Chute begged the house that ‘he might be totally discharged,’ or have leave of absence for a time, whereupon Sir Lislebone Long, knt., recorder of London, was chosen speaker during Chute's absence. On 21 March the members who were appointed by the house to visit him at his home in the count found him ‘very infirm and weak.’ He died on 14 April 1659, and on the following day Thomas Bamfield [q. v.], who, upon Long becoming ill, had) been chosen deputy-speaker, was elected to the chair. Chute acquired a great reputation at the bar and was employed in the defence of Sir Edward Herbert (the king’s attorney-general), Archbishop Laud, the eleven members of the House of Commons charged by Fairfax and his army as delinquents, and James, duke of Hamilton. He was one of the counsel retained to defend the bishops when they were impeached for making canons in 1641. Two only of their counsel a peered, Serjeant Jermin, who declined to plead unless a warrant was first rocured from the House of Commons, and Chute, ‘who, being demanded of the lords whether he would
