Thomas Chaloner was born in 1521 to Margaret Myddleton (c. 1490–1534) and Roger Challoner (c. 1490–1550), a descendant of the
Denbighshire Chaloners. His father was a London silk merchant who lived at
St Mary-at-Hill Street,
Billingsgate. A
courtier, Roger was a
Gentleman-Usher of the Privy Chamber to King
Henry VIII, a
Teller of the Receipt of the Exchequer, and a
Freeman of the City of London through the
Worshipful Company of Mercers. Roger died in 1550 and was buried in the main body of the Church of
St Dunstan-in-the-East. Sir Thomas's two brothers, Francis and
John Challoner settled in Ireland where John became a prominent politician and administrator. No details are known of Thomas Chaloner's youth except that he was educated at both
Oxford and
Cambridge (likely
St John's College). In 1540 he went, as secretary to
Sir Henry Knyvett, to the court of
Charles V, whom he accompanied in his expedition against Algiers in 1541, and was wrecked on the
Barbary coast. In 1547 he joined in the expedition to Scotland, and was knighted, after the battle of
Pinkie near
Musselburgh, by the
protector Somerset, whose patronage he enjoyed. In 1549 he was a witness against
Edmund Bonner,
bishop of London; in 1551 against
Stephen Gardiner,
bishop of Winchester; in the spring of the latter year he was sent as a commissioner to Scotland to conclude the
Treaty of Norham, and again in March 1552. In 1553 he went with Sir
Nicholas Wotton and Sir William Pickering on an embassy to France, but was recalled by
Queen Mary on her accession. During the war with France, 1557–1558, Chaloner provided carriages for troops. In 1558 he went as
Elizabeth's ambassador to the
Emperor Ferdinand at
Cambrai, from July 1559 to February 1559/60 he was ambassador to
Philip II of Spain at Brussels. Chaloner bought books for
William Cecil in Antwerp including an illustrated work on architecture which he suggested might be useful for
Burghley House at
Stamford. In 1561 he was ambassador to Spain. His letters are full of complaints of his treatment there, but it was not till 1564, when in failing health, that he was allowed to return home. He died at his house in
Clerkenwell on 14 October 1565. portrait of Sir Thomas Chaloner,
frontispiece to his 1579
De Rep. Anglorum instauranda libri decem. He acquired during his years of service three estates,
Guisborough in Yorkshire,
Steeple Claydon in Buckinghamshire, and
St Bees in
Cumberland. He married (I) Joan, widow of Sir
Thomas Leigh; and (2) Audrey, daughter of
Edward Frodsham, of Elton, Cheshire, by whom he had one son, Sir
Thomas Chaloner (1559–1615). Chaloner was the intimate of most of the learned men of his day, and with
Lord Burghley he had a lifelong friendship. Throughout his busy official life he occupied himself with literature, his Latin verses and his pastoral poems being much admired by his contemporaries. Chaloner wrote the tragedy of Richard II for
William Baldwin's
Mirror for Magistrates, first published in 1559. His most important work,
De Rep. Anglorum instauranda libri decem, written while he was in Spain, was first published by
William Malim (1579, 3 pts.), with complimentary Latin verses in praise of the author by Burghley and others. Chaloner's epigrams and epitaphs were also added to the volume, as well as in , first printed in 1560. Amongst his other works are
The praise of folie, Moriae encomium ... by Erasmus ... Englished by Sir Thomas Chaloner, Knight (1549, ed. Janet E. Ashbee, 1901); A book of the
Office of Servantes (1543), translated from Gilbert Cousin (Gilbertus Cognatus); and
An homilie of Saint John Chrysostome ... Englished by T. C. (1544). In 1598 Chaloner is mentioned in
Francis Meres'
Palladis Tamia as a pastoral poet: "As Theocritus in Greeke, Virgil and Mantuan in Latine, Sanazar in Italian, and the Authour of Amyntae Gaudia and Walsinghams Melibaeus are the best for pastorall: so amongst us the best in this kind are Sir Philip Sidney, master Challener, Spencer, Stephen Gosson, Abraham Fraunce and Barnefield."
Palladis Tamia is important in English literary history as the first critical account of the poems and early plays of William Shakespeare. ==References==