James Chaloner

James Chaloner (1602–1660) was an English politician on the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War, and commissioner at the trial of King Charles I.

Biography
Chaloner was born in the parish of St Olave, Silver Street, London, the fourth son of the naturalist Sir Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, Yorkshire, and Elizabeth Fleetwood of London, and grandson of Sir Thomas Chaloner, poet and ambassador of Queen Elizabeth. On 10 April 1648 he became the Member of Parliament for Aldborough, Yorkshire. He was not excluded from Parliament during Pride's Purge on 20 December 1648 and declared his opposition for the earlier Commons vote accepting Charles I's answers in the Treaty of Newport as grounds for continuing negotiations. In January 1649 he was appointed to sit as a commissioner at the Trial of Charles I and sat for a total of six sessions and unlike his elder brother Thomas Chaloner he did not sign the royal death warrant.

During the Interregnum he was active in the Commonwealth and enjoyed the patronage of Thomas Fairfax, but under the Protectorate he played no active part in National politics. In 1655 he fell under suspicion of encouraging Fairfax to join the Sealed Knot uprising in Yorkshire, so to remove him from scrutiny Fairfax found him an appointment as governor of the Isle of Man. He was still the governor in 1659 when he declared for General George Monck during the second Commonwealth. The London faction of the New Model Army arrested him, but on 7 December that year as the London faction's star fell and Monck's rose. The Rump ordered Chaloner's release, and in January 1660 confirmed his governorship of the Isle of Man.

He died in July 1660 (and was most likely buried on the Isle of Man) of a sickness he had contracted during his imprisonment. Before his death he professed his support for the Royalist cause and explaining away his part in the Regicide as an attempt on his part "to keep things from falling into a worse condition". He was most likely buried on the Isle of Man. His explanation was disregarded and his name was included in those whose property was sequestrated by the state under the "forfeitures not extending to Life" terms of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion.

Family
Chaloner married Ursula, daughter of Sir Philip Fairfax of Steeton, a son and two daughters survived him. His exemption from the general pardon, meant that his family were left unprovided for.

Chaloner's daughter Veriana married Thomas Cobbe, General Receiver of County Southampton and Chaloner's grandson Charles Cobbe became Primate of Ireland.