CHEYNE, Sir John I

More of interest can be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 552-4.

In the mid 1430s Cheyne had dealings with Reynold, Lord Grey of Ruthin, and his son, Sir John Grey, entering into a bond for £200 with them in June 1435. He did so on behalf of John Watkins*, one of his chief accomplices in the lawless activities in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire that had prompted the issuing of the commission of oyer and terminer against him five years earlier. The security was intended to ensure that Watkins would adhere to an award that Robert Cavendish, serjeant-at-law, William Tresham* and Walter Taylard*, all nominees of Cheyne and the Greys, were to make between him on the one hand and Lord Reynold and Sir John on the other by the following Christmas, with the proviso that Cheyne was to hand over Watkins to the Greys should these arbitrators fail to reach such a settlement. By 1436, however, the Greys had begun suits at Westminster against Cheyne and his brother Thomas, who had put his name on a like bond, on the grounds that no arbitration award had come about and that they had not delivered Watkins to them. In pleadings of Easter term that year, the Cheynes responded by claiming that they had in fact attempted to hand over Watkins to Sir John Grey in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, Middlesex, only for the latter to refuse to take him.3 CP40/701, rot. 308. Whatever its cause, the disagreement between the Greys and Watkins, to whom they were connected by feudal ties (they paid him an annual rent from their manor of Stoke Hammond, Buckinghamshire), was far from permanent. In October 1441, for example, Watkins stood surety in the Chancery for the good behaviour of Edmund, Lord Grey, son of Sir John Grey and grandson and heir of Reynold.4 Grey of Ruthin Valor ed. Jack, 116; CCR, 1441-7, p. 32.

In the early 1440s Cheyne and others conducted a lawsuit against his relative and namesake, John Cheyne I*, and the latter’s second wife in the court of common pleas. Ostensibly, the case concerned the title to certain lands at Lenborough near Buckingham,5 CP40/720, rot. 117; 721, rot. 111. although quite possibly it arose from the defendant’s financial difficulties, of which the MP and his brother, Thomas Cheyne of Chesham Bois, and others had taken advantage. John Cheyne I had begun the process of disposing of his estates over a decade earlier, and in due course even his family seat at Chenies fell into the MP’s hands.

Cheyne seems to have had a charmed life, for he yet again escaped serious trouble in the later 1440s, after falling under suspicion of high treason, whether in connexion with further lollard plots or for some other reason. Summoned to Westminster, he appeared in King’s bench in Michaelmas term 1447, and the court sent him into custody while the authorities made inquiries about his activities. The Crown issued a proclamation urging anyone who knew of treasonous behaviour on his part to inform either the justices or the serjeants-at-law and attorneys at Westminster, but no such information was forthcoming and he regained his freedom sine die.6 KB27/746, rex rot. 26d.

Very late in life, Cheyne sued a widow from London, Joan Swete, in the common pleas. When the case reached pleadings in Trinity term 1467, he alleged that she had stolen a gold collar, set with a gold flower and worth 14 marks, from him in the city parish of St. Benet’s in Paul’s Wharf in May 1463. Joan counterpleaded that he had in fact entrusted it to her for safekeeping, by the hands of his then wife, Agnes Cheyne. The parties agreed to refer the matter to a jury but a trial was still pending only months before Cheyne’s death. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is possible that the dispute related to an episode that had occurred at a townhouse owned by MP in London.7 CP40/824, rot. 353d. The case is worthy of notice in another respect, since it shows that Cheyne had married his second wife by the spring of 1463, over three years before the completion of the settlements for their match.