take the Chiltern Hundreds

take the Chiltern Hundreds (third-person singular simple present takes the Chiltern Hundreds, present participle taking the Chiltern Hundreds, simple past took the Chiltern Hundreds, past participle taken the Chiltern Hundreds)

1. (UK, politics) To vacate one's seat in the House of Commons (since resignation is not permitted), under the legal fiction of being appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown": the ancient office of Crown Steward for the Chiltern Hundreds, in modern times a mere sinecure.