John Cheyne (speaker)

Sir John CheyneorCheney(died 1414) was aMember of Parliamentand briefly the initialSpeakerof theHouse of Commons of Englandin the Parliament of October 1399, summoned by the newly acclaimedHenry IV.

In 1372, he married Margaret, daughter of William, Lord Deincourt and the widow of Robert, Lord Tiptoft which brought him wealth and status. He became an esquire in the king's household and was knighted in 1378. He took part in a number of diplomatic missions and became MP forGloucestershirein 1390, 1393, 1394 and 1399.

On the last occasion he was elected Speaker, but stood down on the ostensible grounds of ill-health, but may have been persuaded to do so by the influence ofThomas Arundel,archbishop of Canterbury, who was appalled by his election and warned theclergythat Cheyne was an inveterate enemy of the contemporary church. The revolution of 1399 made for strange bedfellows. Under Henry IV, he continued to be employed on diplomatic missions, including a two-year trip to Rome in 1407.

He acquired property inBeckford,Gloucestershire as his principal estate. Being near to death, he was not implicated in theOldcastle Risingof 1413/14, which involved a few, but far from all, of the sect, but the Cheynes ofDrayton Beauchamp,Buckinghamshire,were, and they seem to have been his eventual heirs after the deaths of his sons.

Death

He died in 1414 and was buried in Beckford churchyard. He had been married a second time to Margaret, daughter and heir of Sir Edward Lovetot of Southoe, Huntingdonshire with whom he had a son, John.

Sources

• Saul, Nigel. "Cheyne, Sir John".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/41195.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)