Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cheyne, Henry
CHEYNE or LE CHEN, HENRY (d. 1328), bishop of Aberdeen, was the nephew of John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, killed by Robert Bruce in 1306, and the brother of Sir Reginald le Chen, baron of Inverugie, and great chamberlain of Scotland. He succeeded Hugh de Benham, or Benhyem [q. v.], bishop of Aberdeen, who died in 1282, but the date of his election is not known. He was one of the prelates who attended the parliament at Brigham, near Roxburgh, on 17 March 1289. On 23 Feb. 1295 his seal was attached to the treaty between John Baliol and the French. In 1291 he swore fealty to Edward I at Berwick-on-Tweed, which oath he repeated in 1296 at Aberdeen, and afterwards at Berwick and he was one of Edward's guardians of the sheriffdom of Aberdeen in 1297. On 24 Feb. 1309 he attended a great meeting of the clergy held at Dundee, whence they issued their declaration in favour of Robert Bruce, and on 29 Oct. he attested the treaty concluded at Inverness between Bruce and the ambassadors of the king of Norway. These imdoubted facts seem to contradict the statement of Boece, that the bishop after the death of Comyn fled to England with others of that faction when fortune declared for Bruce. If he did flee to England, it must have been at a subsequent date; and the offence which required the formal restitution to the royal favour granted to him by parliament on 18 Dec. 1318 was probably connected with the sending of the papal bull to Bruce commanding a truce for two years between Scotland and England. According to tradition the bishop applied the rents which had accumulated during his absence from his see in building the Gothic bridge with one arch over the Don at Baldownie, near Aberdeen but according to the charter of Sir Alexander Hay in 1605, bequeathing an annual sum for its support, the bridge was erected at the order and expense of King Robert, although it is possible he applied the rents of the bishopric to this purpose. The death of Cheyne occurs in the church register in 1328 but Boece, apparently for rhetorical effect places it in the following year, 1329. 'Qui annus,' he says, 'erat Roberto regi vitæ ultimus.'
[Acta Pari. Scot. vol. i.; Ragman Roll; Boece Vit. Pont. Aberd.; Keith's Scottish Bishops (Russell), pp. 109-10; Registmm Episcopatiis Aberdonensis (Maitland Club), 1845, i. preface, pp. zxvi-xxviii, ii. 278; Fasti Aberdonenses (Spalding Club).]