Hasted, speaking of this nobleman and his Kentish possessions, narrates,—
"Henry Cheney, Esqr., succeeded his father at Shurland, among his other Estates in this County, and in the third year of Queen Elizabeth he had livery of it with the rest of his inheritance; in the fifth year of it, he kept his Shrievalty for this County at his seat, in which year he was knighted, in the fourteenth year of that reign he was created Lord Cheney of Toddington in the County of Bedford. By his expensive method of living he acquired the name of "the extravagant Lord Cheney," and before his death had dissipated the great possessions which his father had left him and died without issue 30 Elizabeth, anno 1587. However, long before his death, having removed to Toddington, where he had built a most magnificent seat, he exchanged the manor and seat of Shurland, with other estates in the neighbourhood of it, with the Queen, and the fee of it remained in the hands of the Crown, till King James I., in his second year granted it to Philip Herbert, younger brother of William, Earl of Pembroke, who the next year was created Lord Herbert of Shurland, and Earl of Montgomery. Sir Thomas Cheney—his father—seems to have had some foreknowledge of his son's future extravagance, for by his last will he devised his lands and manors to his son Henry and the heirs of his body, remainder to Thomas Cheney of Woodley, Esqr., and to the heirs male of his body, upon condition, that he or they or any of them should not alien or discontinue.
"Henry, Lord Cheney was possessed of much land in this parish, which with all the rest of his estates, through his profuse manner of living he was obliged to alienate from time to time.
"The Cheneys bore for their arms, Argent, on a bend sable, three mullets or, which coat on their marrying the heiress of Shurland, they bore in the second place. But the Lord Cheney bore his own coat in the first place, and that of Shurland second, and afterwards those of Shottesbroke, Broughton, Beard, Foster, Pevre, Loring, Beaple, Blaine, Manseck, Perrott, Hemgrave, Stonham, Burgat, Barneck, Neame, Engaine, Dawbney, Denston, and Wanston. For his supporters, Two Thoyes vert, spotted gules and or, collared and chained or. Sir Thomas Cheney bore for his crest, on a wreath argent and vert, two horns of a bull argent on the curled scalp or;—but the Lord Cheney changed it to 'a Thoye passant, collared with a ducal collar or. Arms of Shurland, Azure, five lions rampant argent, a canton ermine, which arms are on the roof of the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral.'"
Lord Cheney was one of the peers who sat on the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. He died without issue in 1587, leaving the whole of his remaining property to his widow. He erected a magnificent seat at Toddington, concerning which Lysons adds,—
"Lord Cheney built a noble mansion at Toddington, about half a mile from the church, of which nothing now remains but the kitchen, which is remarkably spacious, having two fireplaces, each twelve feet in width, and a few rooms fitted up as a farm house. The greater part of the building was pulled down by the Earl of Strafford about the year 1745. It appears by an antient plan of the house (in 1802 on a fire-screen at the farm) that it occupied four sides of a quadrangle, at each corner of which was a turret; the north and south fronts were two hundred and ten feet in length, the chapel was thirty feet by twenty-four, the tennis court was sixty-five feet in length, and a marble gallery, fifty-eight."
Thus this fine edifice shared the fate of its predecessor erected by the Peyvres, from whom, through Broughton who married their heiress, Lord Cheney inherited the manor of Toddington, by marrying the heiress of Broughton.
From the dismantled earthly home of the extinct Cheneys to the final one appointed for all, is but the natural sequence of this world's history of human life. The olden possessors of Toddington, successively Peyvre, Broughton, and Cheney, are all gathered together in death, in the south transept of the church. Of them, and the fate of their memorials, a few words.
The Peyvres were an antient family, holding the manor of Toddington, as early as the reign of Henry III. Paulinus Peyvre, Steward of the Household to Henry III., was, says Lysons,—
"a man of mean origin, and when he went to Court, was not possessed of two carucates of land; but by means lawful and unlawful, (as Matthew Paris observes) acquired such wealth, that he soon became possessed of five hundred carucates; a most insatiable purchaser of lands (says the historian) and a most incomparable builder. Not to speak of those in other places, his house at Toddington was like a palace, with a chapel, chambers, and other buildings, covered with lead, which raised the admiration of all beholders. His workmen are said to have received a hundred shillings, and more than ten marks for their wages."