Maurice Chauncey: A Carthusian Who Took the Oath

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Maurice Chauncey was:

Prior of the English Carthusians at Bruges, date of birth unknown; died at Bruges, 2 July, 1581. He was the eldest son of John Chauncey, Esq. Wood thinks he studied at Oxford, and afterwards went to Gray's Inn for a course of law. Finally he entered the London Charterhouse. In 1535 the majority of the Carthusians refused to take the oath of supremacy, but Chauncy, on his own confession, consented to take it. After the surrender of the monastery in 1537, Chauncy with a few others joined the Carthusians of Sheen who had settled in Bruges. On the accession of Mary they returned to Sheen, and in 1556 Chauncy was elected prior. In 1558 they retired again to Bruges, living with their Flemish brethren until 1569, when they obtained a house on their own in St. Clare Street. The hostility of the Calvinists compelled them to leave Bruges in 1578. Failing to settle at Douai, they retired to Louvain (May, 1578). Chauncy died at the old house in Bruges. In his history of the Carthusians he frequently laments his weakness in taking the oath of supremacy. He wrote: "Historia aliquot nostri saeculi Martyrun in Angliâ", etc. (Mainz, 1550, and Bruges, 1583); "Commentariolus de vitae ratione et martyrio octodecim Cartusianorum qui in Anglia sub rege trucidati sunt" (Ghent, 1608), a portion of which was reprinted; "Vitae Martyrun Cartusianorum aliquot, qui Londini pro Unitate Ecclesiae adversus haereticos", etc. (Milan, 1606). "The Divine Cloud of Unknowing", in manuscript, is ascribed to him by Anthony a Wood.

He died in Bruges on July 23, 1581. According to Philip Hughes in his Rome and the Counter Reformation in England, Chauncey wrote to Father William Allen in 1577 complaining about how the missionary priests wore secular clothing when they returned to England. Allen had to instruct Chauncey about the dangers the priests were already facing--before Parliament had made it a treasonous offense for a priest to be present in England. Alison Plowden provides some quotations from Allen's reply to Chauncey in her Danger to Elizabeth.