Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 1st Baronet

Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 1st Baronet (22 July 1600 – 20 November 1657) was a Member of Parliament (MP) and Royalist leader during the English Civil War. His name is sometimes spelt Cholmley.

Cholmeley was the son of Sir Richard Cholmeley, and was educated at Beverley Free School and Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1624 he was elected MP for Scarborough, and represented the town in every succeeding Parliament until he was excluded from the House of Commons for his Royalist activities in 1643. He was knighted in 1626, and created a baronet in 1641.

During the years when Charles I ruled without Parliament, Cholmeley became, together with Sir John Hotham one of the leaders of resistance among the Yorkshire gentry. He organised a number of petitions and protests, and in 1639 he refused to pay ship money. As a result was dismissed from all his posts, and summoned before the Council of State, the King reportedly telling Hotham and Cholmeley that if they interfered again he would hang them both.

Initially a Parliamentarian when civil war broke out, Cholmely was one of the parliamentary commissioners sent to negotiate with the King in May 1642; he raised a regiment for the Parliamentary army which fought at the Battle of Edgehill, and later joined with Fairfax in his campaign against the royalist garrison at York.

However, when the Queen landed in Yorkshire, returning from the Netherlands where she had been attempting to raise money and troops, Cholmeley declared for the King, and Newcastle put him in command all maritime affairs along the northern half of the Yorkshire coast. After the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Marston Moor, Cholmely refused to flee the country, holding Scarborough for the king until he was forced to surrender on 22 July, 1645.

He spent most of the rest of his life in exile, writing his memoirs before his death in 1657.

References

*"Dictionary of National Biography"
*D Brunton & D H Pennington, "Members of the Long Parliament" (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
*J Foster, "Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire"
*Rayment