CHEYNE (CHEYNEY), William (1622-41), of Chesham Bois, Bucks.

Elected in 1640 at the age of only 17, William Cheyne was to have one of the briefest parliamentary careers of any of the MPs who sat in the Long Parliament. That election owed everything to the local standing of the Cheyne family. The Cheynes took their name from Iselhampstead Chenies, where members of the family had been living as early as the thirteenth century, and they had since risen to become prominent members of the south Buckinghamshire gentry.4White, ‘Chesham Bois’, 200. In 1620 this MP’s father, Francis Cheyne, had inherited the family seat at Chesham Bois from an uncle, Francis Cheyney†.5VCH Bucks. iii. 219. With his first wife, Eliza Wright, Francis Cheyne had fathered a son, also called Francis, but he had not survived, so it was William, the eldest of the four sons with his second wife, who ranked as his heir.6Vis. Bucks. 1634, 27-8. Their neighbours included John Hampden*, which helps explain why William married a daughter of Hampden’s cousin, Sir Thomas Barrington*. It is just possible that he was the person who was serving as the lieutenant in Lieutenant-colonel Thomas Lunsford’s regiment stationed at Newcastle in August 1640, but, on balance, this seems unlikely.7CSP Dom. 1640, p. 648.

Given his age and the fact that he sat for only five months, it is unsurprising that Cheyne left no trace in the records of the Long Parliament. He died from smallpox on 20 April 1641 and was buried at Chesham Bois two days later.8Procs. LP iv. 149; White, ‘Chesham Bois’, 208. The Commons ordered a new writ for the by-election to fill the vacancy on 30 April.9CJ ii. 130b; Procs. LP iv. 149, 153. His widow subsequently married Sir Toby Tyrrell (nephew of Thomas Tyrrell*).10Lipscombe, Buckingham, iii. 119. Cheyne’s father survived him by only three years. The family estates then passed to William’s brother Charles, who sat for Amersham in 1660 and who was created Viscount Newhaven in the Scottish peerage in 1681.11PROB11/192/76; VCH Bucks. iii. 219.