CHEYNE, Edmund

Although Cheyne’s background, wealth and family connexions all predicted for him a prominent role in regional and possibly even national affairs, his premature death at the age of 28 confounded these expectations. He belonged to the third generation of his family to sit in Parliament, for his grandfather Sir Ralph Cheyne† (d.1400) had represented Wiltshire three times, and his father had sat once for Dorset. The combined estates of his parents in seven counties provided them with an income of at least £193 p.a., of which some £51 came from Wiltshire, the county which Edmund himself was to represent in the Commons. His father Sir William, twice sheriff of this county and once of Devon, became a military captain of note, who in 1417 led a force of 75 men for the defence of Harfleur,3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 558-9. only to die in September 1420, when Edmund was still only 18. Sir William’s widow Cecily kept their principal manor of Brooke and certain other estates in Wiltshire, Somerset and Lincolnshire as her jointure,4 CIPM, xxi. 453-9; VCH Wilts. viii. 151. and together with a consortium headed by Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, she was able to purchase her son’s wardship and marriage from the Crown for the princely sum of £400.5 CPR, 1416-22, p. 310. Subsequently, in February 1423 the valuable commodity which was Cheyne’s marriage was procured by none other than the treasurer of England, Master John Stafford, and his half-brother the wealthy Sir Humphrey, who were bound to Cecily in recognizances for 500 marks to keep the bargain, and to ensure that the heir would marry Sir Humphrey’s daughter, Alice.6 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 57-58; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 441.

Two months earlier, in December 1422, the death of Cheyne’s kinswoman Katherine Stretch, the elderly widow of both his great-uncle Sir Edmund Cheyne† (d.1376) and his maternal grandfather Sir John Stretch (d.1390), had released more lands of his inheritance, which were let out to farm by the Crown in May 1423. These estates included manors in Cambridgeshire and Devon, as well as that of Poyntington in Somerset.7 CIPM, xxii. 63-67; CPR, 1422-9, p. 96; VCH Cambs. viii. 113; ix. 225. By this date Cheyne had purportedly come of age, yet it was not until over a year later that, in June 1424, he made formal proof, and even then the testimonies of the jurors at Salisbury lacked conviction. A number of them related events which had happened several months before his birth and which bore little relation to it, although one juror did recollect dining with the dean of Salisbury cathedral on the day itself.8 CIPM, xxii. 366. Having made proof of age, Cheyne received seisin of the lands of his great-uncle,9 CCR, 1422-9, p. 115. and even though the bulk of his inheritance still remained in his mother’s hands, at the time of his death he was in possession of estates worth some £103 p.a.10 CIPM, xxiii. 508-14.

It is quite likely that Cheyne saw military service overseas before he came of age, although the documentary evidence for this is lacking. He certainly did so later in the decade: on 2 Mar. 1425 he contracted to serve for six months in France with the Regent, the duke of Bedford (from whom he held one of his manors in Cambridgeshire); he obtained letters of protection on 16 May, and was mustered with the 13 men-at-arms and 42 mounted archers under his command before crossing from Dover to Calais a few days later.11 E404/41/176; DKR, xlviii. 237; CPR, 1422-9, pp. 300, 302; E101/671, mm. 4, 10. He may have proved successful as a soldier, for he was later remembered as being hot-tempered. On the day of the birth of his second daughter in July 1428, while walking round his park at Brooke, he fell into violent argument with one John Cutting, thrashing him so that his life was endangered.12 C139/120/52. In November that year Cheyne obtained confirmation of a charter dated 1261 and issued by Prince Edward (the future Edward I), this being a grant to one of his ancestors of free warren in the Channel Islands. No doubt he wished to strengthen his own title to land there.13 CPR, 1422-9, p. 521. That he was able to gain this confirmation may be attributed to his links with a member of the Council of the minority, Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, who was currently treasurer of England. As Hungerford was one of the leading landowners of Wiltshire, it may have been also to him that the young man owed his election to Parliament as a knight of the shire for that county on 13 Sept. 1429, in the company of one of Hungerford’s most trusted retainers, Robert Long*.14 C219/14/1. The parliamentary session began on 22 Sept., and a few days later, on 5 Oct., Cheyne appeared with Long in the Exchequer to offer securities for the two men granted the marriage of William Ringbourne*, a minor in the King’s wardship. It was probably in the interest of his fellow MP that he was acting, for the heir would appear to have subsequently married Long’s daughter.15 CFR, xv. 278.

Also while the Parliament was in progress, Cheyne was knighted, most likely on the eve of the coronation of Henry VI, which took place on 5 Nov. His elevation may be charted from the way he was described (first as esquire then as knight) when he witnessed a series of deeds dated that month and in December on behalf of the treasurer Hungerford.16 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 43-44, 51, 53-56; Hungerford Cart. (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xlix), 117-18. During the second session of the Parliament (16 Jan. to 23 Feb. 1430) preparations were finalized for the King to cross the Channel for his coronation as king of France, and the recruitment of a substantial army to accompany him. On 18 Feb., five days before the dissolution, Cheyne indented for service on the expedition, with a body of three other men-at-arms and 12 archers, and payments for this force were made to him in the Exchequer on 12 Apr. and 9 May.17 E101/70/4/667; E404/46/191; E403/693, m. 20; 695, m. 4. If indeed he did cross to France it was there that he died just a few days later, on 30 May. Sir Edmund had given his wife jointure in various manors in Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, and had granted his reversionary interest in the manor and advowson of Norton Hawkfield, Somerset, in tail to his younger brother John,18 CFR, xv. 276; CIPM, xxiii. 508-14. but the heirs to the bulk of his estate were his three infant daughters: Elizabeth, Anne and Cecily. His mother still retained a large part of the Cheyne lands, as well as her own Stretch inheritance, and in the following August she granted part of the latter, the valuable manor of Pinhoe in Devon, to her younger son, John, and his heirs. But it was not long before she too died, on 18 Oct.,19 CIPM, xxiii. 503-7; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 138-9. Her will, made on 12 Oct. is in PCC 14 Luffenham (PROB11/3, f. 111). followed a few months later by the youngest of the heiresses, her namesake Cecily, on 9 June 1431.20 CIPM, xxiii. 563-6. The girls’ grandfather Sir Humphrey Stafford and his half-brother John, now bishop of Bath and Wells, hastened to secure control over the valuable inheritance, by obtaining from the Crown on 2 July the marriages of the two survivors, and keeping of the Cheyne manor of Tothill in Lincolnshire, only to surrender their grant four months later in favour of the widowed Alice, who paid 500 marks into the Exchequer for her daughters’ marriages. She was allowed £20 p.a. from the issues of Tothill for their maintenance.21 CFR, xvi. 42, 80-81; E159/210, brevia Mich. rot. 50.

In the following year Alice married the Lincolnshire landowner Walter Tailboys*, who undertook to settle on her a handsome jointure.22 CCR, 1429-35, p. 223. Our MP’s younger brother John obtained custody of the manor of Brooke on 5 Feb. 1432, to hold during the minority of his nieces, and rendering as much as £34 p.a. for the same.23 CFR, xvi. 82. The two girls came into yet more property in 1435 on the death of Sir Hugh Luttrell†’s widow, who had held it as the widow of John Stretch, their grandmother’s brother.24 CCR, 1435-41, p. 10. Needless to say, they both married well, Elizabeth becoming the wife by May 1438 of (Sir) John Colshull* of Binnamy, Cornwall,25 C139/95/70; CFR, xvii. 65; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 280-1. and Anne wedding in 1445 (Sir) John Willoughby†, a cousin of Lord Willoughby.26 E159/216, brevia Trin. rot. 17; 222, brevia Mich. rot. 17; CCR, 1441-7, p. 264. Our MP’s relict Alice was widowed for the second time in 1444, four years before her death.27 CPR, 1441-6, p. 441; 1446-52, pp. 5, 155. Her daughters by Cheyne, together with their half-sister, Eleanor Tailboys, who married Thomas Strangeways†, eventually fell heirs to the extensive Stafford estates of their maternal grandfather, following the childless death in 1469 of their cousin Humphrey Stafford IV*, earl of Devon.28 C140/32/30.