Maurice Chauncy was born at an uncertain date, the eldest son of John Chauncy, esq., of Ardeley, Hertfordshire, by his first wife, Elizabeth, widow of Richard Manfield, and daughter and heiress of John Proflit of Barcombe, Sussex.
In 1535, the majority of the Carthusians refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, but Chauncy, on his own confession, agreed to it.
[2] In consequence of their refusal, on 4 May 1535, along with the Bridgettine monk Richard Reynolds, the three Carthusian Priors of London, Beauvale and Axholme, John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, and Augustine Webster went to their deaths, and during the next five years fifteen of the London Carthusians perished on the scaffold or were starved to death in Newgate gaol.
With the accession of Queen Mary hopes for a Catholic restoration revived and some nineteen monks belonging to various houses gathered at Sheen, Chauncy being elected prior there in 1556.
With the dramatic reversal of 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, Chauncy still being the prior.