Contemporary genealogists studying the history of the Chute Family like to think that we developed the ability to "fly under radar", long before radar was invented: in other words, from the 16th century through the early 20th century the family tended to have just enough money and power to be interesting and to remain quite comfortably at the peripheries of history's more famous - or infamous - families while still managing to remain clear of their inevitable downfalls - or worse. James Alexander Manning wrote of Chaloner Chute, Speaker of the House of Commons of the Third Protectorate Parliament,

"Mr. Chute lived in very eventful periods, and although he was several times a parliament man, it does not appear that he entertained any of those violent opinions or principles, which rendered so many of his contemporaries notorious rather than memorable."(1)

I would take that estimation a step further, and suggest that, traditionally, members of the Chute family seemed most content when they were neither notorious or particularly memorable from a historian's viewpoint - life as a rule seemed more pleasant and enjoyable when this was the case.

Known family history extends back to William the Conqueror and we appear to be direct descendants of the Norman Douai family(2); debate continues as to whether the surname "Chute" was a Normandy place-name, a maternal place-name, or a variant of the word "Jute". There is also a theory that the Irish Tuites developed from the Normandy/Anglo-Saxon "Jutes" or "Chutes", and that two distinct strains of the same family arrived in Ireland at different times.

Even in 1066 the family soon to be known as "Chute" seems to have adroitly avoided running into possible disaster at the Battle of Hastings: our first known ancestor, Edward, of the ship-building dynasty associated with Urso de Douai and comfortable in both Normandy and England, was instead sent by William up the English Channel with a fleet of ships to prevent the Cornish and the Welsh from entering the battle. As there is no record that either party ever made the effort to do so, we are perhaps the only family to earn vast tracts of land in Britain by spending the entire Battle of Hastings anchored in the mouth of the channel, happily fishing, and out of harm's way. Given this, the earliest known of our family's military exploits, we sometimes suspect that the family motto: "Fortune de guerre" was meant ironically. Or perhaps the "fortune" was in being sent off to placid fishing waters during the heat of battle.

From this point, we settled in Taunton, Kent (land record, 1268), somehow managed to survive the Black Plague, held various positions of importance (Robert, d. 1435, "Serjeant-atte- Lawe & Baron of Exchequer in time of Henry VI"), resettled in Sussex and named at least one poor daughter "Ammerica" shortly after its discovery. It has been theorized that the move occurred after Edmund Chute, who sold the property in Taunton in 1502, moved to his mother's ancestral lands in Sussex - his mother was a Cheney, related to Sir Thomas Cheney of the Cinque Ports(3) . It is almost certain that the Chutes gained more prominence in their public life after this connection with the Cheney's was established, or at least, they now began to appear in official records more frequently.

Philip Chute (or "Chowte", even after the Great Vowel Shift hit the Chute family) of Appledore was born about 1494. Among other positions, Philip was Standard-Bearer of King Henry VIII at the Siege of Boulogne in 1544, was awarded augmentation of his armorial bearings as a result "of his valor", and was granted lands and "monastic spoils" in southwest Kent. While this may have been true in some instances, we've found more records of land purchases than not, and the stories of his having been simply handed vast tracts of lands after the Reformation by propitiously tossing the Catholic icons out the family windows may have been, in part, erroneous assumptions made by later generations.

Again, the family's ability to weather the prevailing "winds of change" continued in the person of Philip (portrait, right, now in the Vyne, in Hampshire), who adjusted remarkably well to the upheaval of the Reformation and the vagaries of King Henry VIII. In fact, his appointment to the position of Captain of Camber Castle in Rye, cited to "Dilecto servienti nostro Philipo Chowte armigero"(4) was, astonishingly, subsequently ratified without comment or discussion by first the Catholic Mary and then the Protestant Elizabeth, neither of whom appeared to doubt his loyalty in this position of national security. Needless to say, this does make his descendants wonder what, exactly, Philip did for the Tudor Family by way of "valor" in the Siege of Boulogne that had earned him this level of consistent regard by a series of mutually antagonistic sovereigns(5). It was also significant enough that Philip even survived without incident the scandal that erupted when Catherine Howard, wife of Henry VIII, was discovered to be consorting with Thomas Culpeper: Philip was married to one of Thomas' relatives - Margaret Culpeper - at the time.

But in addition to the land, armorial bearings and position, he also received, from King Henry VIII, personally, a sapphire from King Henry's own royal ring, a symbol of personal indebtedness, which Philip could have retained but instead quietly returned - without explanatory comment - to the Chancellor of the Court of Queen Elizabeth I near the end of his own life. There is no record of anyone in the Court of Queen Elizabeth asking him, "What was this for, again?" It appears that, whatever he did, it was "known" to the parties involved, but never recorded or discussed. It is one of our family's most puzzling unsolved mysteries.(6)

Philip's grandsons, Walter, George and Edward seem to have inherited Philip's drive, although Walter, of the three, may have lacked his grandfather's finesse and evident ability to keep his mouth closed: on 17th May 1614 Walter Chute along with an unknown Neville (of the very royally connected Neville's) along with his cohorts Wentworth and John Hoskins were charged with conducting themselves in a disorderly fashion in Parliament and were confined in the Tower of London. This incident caused enough of a stir that William Camden (1551 - 1623), a well known Elizabethan writer and historian, recorded it in his diary and John Richard Green mentioned the incident, although not the actual names of the prisoners, in his History of the English People. It stands out dramatically in Chute family history as one of the few uncharacteristic examples of a Chute "entertaining violent opinions or principles." It stood out dramatically for his father as well - Walter was, over the protests of family and friends, disowned and removed from his father's will. This does not appear to have disturbed him.

"Philip's grandson, Walter, would have been about 45 yrs of age at this time and the same grandson who served as a Captain in Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet during their attack on the island of Fayal in the Azores in 1597 at which time he was roughly 27 years old. If so his father's disapproval had little impact on his fortunes as he continued in Parliament, was knighted, toured Europe for a year or so in the company of the English poet John Donne (1572-1631), was one (along with his brother Sir George) of Sir Walter Raleigh's Company of Adventures to Virginia and became Carver to King James I of England."(7)

It was at this point that the Chute family splintered into three separate directions. Philip's brother Arthur married into the Challoner family, produced Chaloner Chute, directly related by marriage to John Challoner who signed the King's Death warrant, and patriarch of the Chutes of the Vyne in Hampshire.

A second Arthurian branch produced the family "black sheep", Lionel, who became a Puritan in Dedham, England, and, under pressure from the policies of Archbishop Laud and James I, left Great Britain for Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1630. He is recorded as the first Ipswich, Massachusetts schoolmaster.

Even in the American colonies Lionel Chute's descendants continued the tradition of choosing to be somewhere else while history was exploding around them. They wisely sidled out of harm's way to points far north of Salem even as the last "witch" cursed their brother-in- law Nicholas Noyes into perpetuity. After observing the undeserved fate of neighbor and friend John Procter, they also nearly simultaneously decided that perhaps Puritanism was not their personal cup of tea, slipping into Baptism as soon as it was politically expedient to do so.

Lionel is considered the founding patriarch of the largest body of North American and Canadian Chutes. Among his descendants: a Chute at Bunker Hill who is only recorded as having complained that the battle caused him to "damage" his rifle (one hopes this event occurred after he saw "the whites of their eyes"); a Chute who later went off to earn his fortune in Argentina, and whose descendant is a famous winner of the "Kodex Premio"; a Chute who gave Pancho Barnes the name "Pancho", a Chute who got into a famous argument with the Rev. Israel Rise over the Millerite doctrine, even stubbornly holding onto his position as the two- tailed Donati Comet, visible in the fall of 1858, brightened up the skies overhead and sent the Millerites into a frenzy of Biblical Revelations-inspired "told-you-so"s.(8)

The third grandson of Philip to make a name for himself was George, who went off to Ireland in 1579 at the request of Queen Elizabeth I to suppress the rebellion of Gerald fitz James Gerald, the fifteenth Earl of Desmond.

The Chutes would, in fact, eventually set down roots not far from the "cold cabin in the woods, six miles from Tralee", where the Earl died, alone, exhausted and pleading for his life.(9) That George was knighted in recompense for his bravery gives something of a false impression of the amount of it he would have needed were he involved in the actual surrender of the Earl of Desmond, so we suspect that either he had other responsibilities, probably closer to Cork, which hopefully did require a modicum of actual bravery, or - more likely, as James I was known for supplementing his income by "fining armigerous Englishmen" - he had the money to pay for it.

Even so, his knighthood failed to endear the land of Ireland to George and, apparently after surveying the scorched earth around him, he scuttled back to the greener pastures of England, but not before marrying a "Miss Evans of Cork", and fathering Daniel and Thomas, who remained behind. Thomas held the position of Chancellor at Ardfert and was the first Chute to learn the Gaelic language, although his motives were certainly no loftier than to convert the native "heathens" to Protestantism. Daniel, the eldest, married Johanna McElligott in 1630. John O'Hart, who compiled Irish Pedigrees wrote,

"In 1624 an Inquest [was held] on Maurice MacElligott's Estates. In 1625 he was pardoned and allowed to grant to his nephew and heir John MacGillicuddy, Tullygarron, Lisardbouly, Glandovellane and Toureiagh, all of which passed per a Miss MacElligott to the "Chute" family."(10)

The MacElligott Family (variously spelled McEllycudd, McEllycuddy, MacGillicuddy, McKelgol, McEillgodd, McLeod, McKelgol, McEllcole, McEligot, McElligott and more lately MacElligott and even Elliot) is a branch of the O'Sullivan Mor family, which, according to the O'Sullivans, "provided shelter to 12 year old Gerald FitzGerald when Henry's troops sought to capture him, the last member of his family and the heir to the Earlship of Desmond." Descended from Celts who had arrived in Ireland by way of Galicia, Spain, in approximately 800 B.C., the family had previously splintered into the allied O'Sullivan Mor and the O'Sullivan Beare branches; the O'Sullivan Mor was larger, and settled primarily in the Kerry region.

It does raise questions as to why a daughter of such a powerful family allied with O'Sullivan Mor would have married into - and by doing so invested with huge amounts of land - a family which had only recently been in part responsible for their difficulties. One simple explanation was that the Chutes had the money to assume the debts of the estate (?1000), which Daniel paid to John McElligott after the Inquest of the lands of Maurice McElligott. The other is that the Oath of Supremacy was required for inheritance(11). While Maurice was pardoned in this instance, it is possible that the family did not hold much faith in the long-term security of that pardon; marrying a McElligott daughter to an English soldier and son of a member of the landed gentry in Great Britain would have, at the least, kept the McElligott ancestral lands within their reach.

The members of the Ascendancy itself as a class or group certainly existed prior to the aftermath of the 1641 Rebellion, they were consolidated in a more deliberate sense at that time, when the Penal Laws were put into effect, and ownership of land shifted in masse from Catholics to Protestants. Daniel's son, Richard, already a landowner, appears to have benefited more from the restoration of the Monarchy, as there is a set of instructions dated 24 September 1663 written by James Butler, 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Ormond to Thomas Crosbie and Richard Chute, on the management and letting of the Duke's extensive properties in Kerry.(12) Richard was Thomas's son-in-law; The Duke - who Foster called "another great survivor, returned as a royalist Viceroy with a ducal title"(13) would have been recently returned from exile during the Interregnum. While he may have "grappled hopelessly and unsuccessfully with the competing [land] claims of incumbents and dispossessed", he relied on Chute and Crosbie in Kerry to take care of his own.

One of the other recorded incidents from the earlier Irish Chute generations which also involved the Crosbie's is the record of the Great Tranquebar Silver Heist, an early reflection of a certain distance the Chutes maintained from even close family relations who would comprise the Ascendancy in Kerry.

In 1731, a Danish ship, the Golden Lion, on its way from Copenhagen to Tranquebar, India, ran aground in Ballyheigue. It was their unfortunate luck that they landed on the Thomas Crosbie property, and happened to be carrying twelve chests of silver valued at a debatable ?20,000. Crosbie, M.P. for Dingle and former High Sheriff for Kerry was a Chute family relative. He died some weeks after the rescue and his widow Lady Margaret, sister of Lord Barrymore, proceeded with a salvage claim. But that did not stop a robbery from taking place on the evening of June 4-5, 1731 - and a subsequent "investigation" suggested that every family of note in the region was, to some degree, involved: the Denny's, the Blennerhassets and the Crosbies - all Chute relations - being at the top of this list.

This was later disputed with indignation by Protestant "historians" such as Mary A. Hickson, but, more rational minds of recent years have prevailed: Bryan MacMahon of the Journal of the Kerry Archeological and Historical Society (No. 24, 1991), in a well researched article, finds reasons to suspect - if not outright accuse - members of the wealthiest and purportedly most "respectable" Protestant English families along the Kerry coast of taking part in the robbery and subsequent cover-up.

It appears, however, that only one family heard of the plans ahead of time, and decided, as they tended to do, that it was probably a bad idea to get themselves tangled up in the mess. That would be the Chute family. Richard's son, Francis, holding the position of "Collector of Customs in Tralee" wrote a letter to the authorities in Dublin in a letter dated 31 October 1730, advising authorities of the stranding, suggesting a robbery was being planned and they might want to send security forces. "They" did not, earning Francis bragging rights for having warned the Dublin authorities in enough time to prevent the theft, and clearing his own family of suspicion.(14)

Modern Ireland, 1600-1972

Roy Foster(15) devotes an entire chapter of Modern Ireland 1600-1972 to the "Ascendancy Mind". On a number of key points, I would argue that attempting to paint all "Ascendancy" families with the same brush would keep the group a chapter-length discussion, but did not necessarily apply to every Ascendancy family in Ireland. The Chute Family from all indications differed from Foster's standard model in a number of key areas: their view of Great Britain, his assertion that they tried to "out-British the British" in their homes and buildings and in doing so accumulated heavy amounts of debt and the curious "pervasive and characteristic addiction to violent resolutions" of political issues.

There is more evidence that the close relationship that had existed since the 17th century between the Chutes of Chute Hall in Ireland and the Chutes of the Vyne in Hampshire tended to more affect their views and principles than the prevailing attitudes of their respective social classes. While Daniel was setting down roots in Ireland, his cousin Chaloner was in the process of becoming, however briefly, one of the more powerful and respected men in Great Britain. Long before he was unanimously elected Speaker of the House of Commons of the Third Protectorate Parliament, over his own objections, he was a very successful attorney who had been retained as counsel for the Bishops cause in their impeachment trials, and was presented a valuable silver tankard by John, Bishop of Rochester for his efforts on behalf of the bishops and the royal cause. He was assigned to the defense of Archbishop Laud in 1643, and the eleven M.P.s charged with high treason by Cromwell in 1647.(16) He was elected Treasurer of the Middle Temple in 1655; Knight of the Shire for Middlesex in 1656 and 1658. His reputation as a skilled and evenhanded lawyer known for his fairness and equanimity were so well known at the time that "the French ambassador, M. de Bordeaux, wrote home in February that Parliament elected its speaker who is one of the most celebrated lawyers in the nation, and there appeared to be no opposition to his election."(17) When one considers that, within this group of men who stood squarely on the stormy cusp of the recall of the monarchy you could scarcely find two who agreed with each other on anything at all, this was even considered remarkable at the time. In fact, it was the stress of this last appointment which led to his death shortly afterwards. His death was mourned by Chutes in both Ireland and in America.

There is evidence that the Chutes of the Vyne had a deep influence on their cousins, most particularly in Ireland, as there was much more interaction between the Hampshire and Kerry family members. Chaloner Chute had purchased the Vyne, but he did not purchase the mansion from Lord Sandys with any thought of entertaining royalty there - as Sandy had done - a very pragmatic man, he immediately renovated the house to living space for a large family. While entertaining on a large scale was certainly conducted on occasion, its use was primarily and almost exclusively for the use of children and a growing family. The Chutes beginning with Chaloner in Hampshire and Daniel in Chute Hall, shifted ever so slightly from a strong royalist tradition to a "royalist with a yawn" - one of Chaloner's descendants, William John, was known for having little use for royals or semi-royals who arrived late for a Vyne Hunt: he simply left without them, leaving one Duke to wander around lost in the woods looking for the hunting party.(18)

Their one experience with the blue-blooded aristocracy had been a disaster, and in place of the implied "fawning" role of the Protestant Ascendancy Foster finds, we find family stories of the awful "Baroness Dacre", widow of Baron Richard Lennard, 13th Baron Dacre of Hurstmonceaux and Chaloner's second wife, passed down through the generations as their own particular "Evil Stepmother". Her legacy was so pervasive and sinister, Chutes were still making unflattering references to her, many generations later.(19) It is safe to say that at least one family within the Irish Protestant Ascendancy, who watched these events unfold with outrage, regarded the British aristocracy with indifference if not outright dislike, and their rationale for it had nothing to do with a sense of inferiority.

Chute Hall in Ireland distinguished itself from the more well known mansions in Ireland in much the same degree: rather than being used for the purposes of out doing the British in elegance, this was a functional home known for being airy, drafty, damp, lacking modern conveniences even for its time - and often used for "Kerry Dances" - all of the old first floor furniture was simply pushed out of the way, and wild, enthusiastic all night dances open to everyone were held in the house.

They also did not share the anti-Catholic hostility of many other Ascendancy families. Timothy M. Donovan wrote "The Popular History of East Kerry" in 1931, quoting a newspaper article edited by a Sister M. Saint Aloysius in the 1930's. He mentions a deed witnessed by Thomas Chute, and adds, "We have seen before that this Chute family of Chute Hall was in the Penal Days the protector of the Parish Priest of East Kerry and that although the Chutes were then Protestants, they had a "hiding hole" for priests who had a price on their heads." (20)

On the other hand, one of the points of similarity that did exist between the Chutes of Ireland and the Chutes of Hampshire - as well as, surprisingly, the Catholic Daniel O'Connell family, also of Kerry, and other members of the Ascendancy - was the sporting activity of hunting, using packs of dogs known as "black and tans", a description later adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, imported into Ireland from England in 1920-1921 to suppress Sinn F�in and the IRA. Before the term took on such politically-charged overtones, (21) it was a well-known term which hunters used to describe their packs of hounds. An 1895 edition of the sporting journal "Outing"(22) describes some of the "best-known packs of the olden days" as O'Connell's and "Mr. Chute of Chute Hall." Back in England, one of the famous packs at the same time (1895) was William John Chute's, whose famous "Vyne Hunt", attended even by Royals as long as they arrived on time, and described by Jane Austen in her novels, is unfortunately commemorated even today.(23) Blackwell does not define "olden days" well enough to determine which Chute he was referring to, but Richard Chute (married to Theodora Blennerhasset) would have been a likely candidate; their son Frances Blennerhasset Chute, the last of the Chutes in Chute Hall, was also fond of the "sport", and it may have been that the two families gifted each other with dogs (or their offspring) on occasion.

The sport seemed to have a certain intensity connected with it, as indicated by a "bitingly comic account" attributed to George Moore, and written for a French magazine in the 1880's, under the title, "Parnell and His Island". Moore tells of a hunting party being stopped in their tracks by the violence of Land Leaguers, prompting the gentleman in the hunting party to declare, in bitterness,

"No, no, I have had enough of it; I have seen Irishmen stone my hounds. Well, I thought there was more sport in Irishmen than that. I believe in the country no more."(24)

But no matter the degree to which the Chutes tried to keep themselves apart from others of their class, they would eventually share the violence that eventually consumed the Protestant Ascendancy.

An incident took place on the property of Francis Blennerhasset Chute in 1864, which reflected the violence of the times: the Illustrated London News in 1882 reported that a farmer named Murphy, who was under police protection at the time, was fired at while returning home.

"Murphy resides on the property of Mr. F.B. Chute, near Tralee, and since he went into occupation of his present holding, from which the former tenant was evicted, he has been under police protection. He was returning from mass on Sunday in company with Reidy when shots were fired at him. He escaped, but the bullets struck Reidy, without, however, seriously injuring him. One arrest has taken place."(25)

Another report of the evictions which were taking place from the Chute property can be found in the reports of the Tralee Quarter Sessions:

"Mr. F.B. Chute obtained decrees of ejecment (sic) against Elizabeth Bourke and Hugh Connor."(26)

Interestingly, that item sits directly next to another: a listing of the "AHINA Political Prisoners' Maintenance Fund" and beneath another which describes one William Mulhane, a private in the 87th Regiment being "remanded to Petty Sessions on a charge of using seditious language on Sunday night in Limerick, by proclaiming himself a Fenian."

These ejections were taking place in an obviously highly charged political atmosphere; that Francis Chute was being met with retaliatory violence was not unexpected under these conditions. Even so, that the violence would force him into permanent exile from his home had still not occurred to him, even at this stage.

The family had always retained a vacation home in Southsea, it was to this home that Francis fled, when it became apparent that violence in Kerry might soon claim him and his family. Animals were being mutilated and thrown at the house, small fires were being set, threatening letters were being received. By 1891 he was in Cheltenham, Gloucester, and by 1901 in Portsmouth, Hampshire(27), where he died. There is correspondence which suggested that Francis never recovered from being forced into exile by the only country he had ever known and out of the home that he loved.

He surely resisted the idea for as long as he could that he was no longer safe in his own country. As a 9th generation of Chutes who considered Ireland their home, it would be no different than if my elderly father were ordered on pain of death to vacate the United States, after the Chute family had first settled here in 1630. He is also in the 9th generation, of American Chutes. This country is all I have ever known, and being ordered out of it and sent "back home" to Great Britain would be unthinkable. I do not consider myself "British"; neither did Francis.

The trauma of being forced to leave his home had a profound impact on his health and his state of mind. Francis died in Portsmouth at the young age of 65, broken-hearted. His sons scattered. Arthur moved to the United States and settled in California; great-granddaughter Adrienne has written numerous works on American Library systems. Richard and Challoner tried to return to Ireland, living briefly in Dublin, but then quietly returned to England.(8)

The records of the Chute Family Records and Deeds (1823-1940) are now being held by the Kerry County Library.

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