CHEYNE,
formerly written Chein and Chien, a surname of great antiquity in
Scotland. Sir Reginald de Chein, (nephew of John Comyn, lord of
Badenoch, who was killed by Bruce at Dumfries in 1305), was great
chamberlain of Scotland from 1267 go 1269. He was baron of Inverugie,
Strabrock, &c. in Aberdeenshire, where, as well as in Caithness-shire,
he had immense estates. In 1285, he gave the lands of Ardlogy and
Leuchendy, in the parish of Fyvie, in the former county, to the priory
of Fyvie, in connection with the abbey of Arbroath. He is generally
styled pater, to distinguish him from his son of the same name.
Sir Reginald was one of the Magnates Scotiae, who concurred in settling
the succession to the crown on Margaret of Norway, grand-daughter of
Alexander the Third, in 1284. He was also one of the barons who in 1289
addressed Edward the First of England, on the subject of a marriage
between the young queen of Scots and his son the prince of Wales, with
the view of uniting the kingdoms. He made his submission to the English
monarch at Aberdeen, on 17th July 1296 and his name, as well
as that of Reginaldus le Chein, filius, is found in the Ragman Roll.
His brother,
Henry le Cheyn, was bishop of Aberdeen, from 1281 to 1333 (although
according to Boece and other writers he died in 1329). The house of the
Carmelite friars in Aberdeen had been built and endowed by his father,
Reginald le Cheyn, who, besides other revenues, bestowed upon it two
pounds yearly out of the lands of Blackwater in the parish of St.
Fergus, Aberdeenshire, which entirely belonged to him. Henry, like his
brother and nephew, swore fealty to Edward the First in 1296, and on
Bruce’s asserting his right to the throne, he was obliged for a time to
retire into England; but was permitted by King Robert, after being
settled on the throne, to return to his see, when, according to
tradition, he applied all the rents of his bishopric, which, during his
absence had accumulated to a considerable amount, in building the fine
old Gothic bridge with one arch, over the river Don, (the celebrated
Brig of Balgonie,) near Aberdeen. It is probable that if he had any
concern in the bridge at all, it was at the command of King Robert Bruce
that he thus devoted the unapplied rents of his see to such a purpose.
In the account of the bishop in Boece’s Lives, there is no mention made
of such a work, while the distinct assertion in the charter of Sir
Alexander Hay, who bequeathed, in 1605, an annual sum of two pounds,
five shillings, and eightpence, for the support of this bridge, that
certain annals testified that it was erected by the order and at the
expense of King Robert, is a fair proof that the structure was the work
of that monarch, and not of the prelate, who had rendered to his
authority an unwilling obedience, and to whom it has ever been popularly
imputed.
The
above-named Sir Reginald le Chein, chamberlain, was succeeded by his
son, who, as already stated, bore the same name. Nisbet mentions a
charter, without a date, granted “by Reynald Chein, son of Reynald, of
the lands of Dury, which he disponed to Gilbert, son of Robert of
Strathern, and which charter was afterwards confirmed by Adam of
Killconehaugh, earl of Carrick, and after that, King Robert the Bruce
gives the lands of Dummany, which formerly belonged to Rodger Moubray,
to Sir Reginald Chein, as that king’s charter bears.” Sir Reginald, the
son, was taken prisoner at the battle of Halidonhill in 1333, and died,
without male issue, in 1350. He had two daughers, Mariota and Mary. Of
these the following story is related. Sir Reginald, who possessed more
than a third of Caithness, including the district which now forms the
parish of Wick, is still famous in the Highland districts as a mighty
hunter, under the name of Morar na Shien. He was most anxious for a son
to heir his vast estates; and when his wife, Mary, brought h im a
daughter, in a paroxysm of fury he ordered the child to be destroyed. It
was, however, conveyed away, and a subsequent daughter escaped, in a
similar manner, the rage of the twice disappointed chief. Years rolled
on, and Morar na Shien often lamented his childless condition. At
length, on some public occasion, a great festival was held, at which Sir
Reginald noticed two young ladies, who far outshone the rest of the
company. He expressed his admiration, and lamented to his wife his cruel
infatuation, which had led him to order the death of his daughters, who,
had they been allowed to live, would have been about the age of these
peerless beauties. Mary de Cheyne hastened to confess her justifiable
disobedience to her husband’s orders, and introduced the young ladies to
him as his own daughters. Over-powered with joy, Sir Reginald de Cheyne
acknowledged them as his; and constituted them heiresses of his
extensive possessions. Mariota, the elder daughter, married, first, Sir
John Douglas, and after his death, without issue, John de Keith, of
Raven’s Craig, second son of Sir Edward Keith, great marischal of
Scotland, and with her the estate of Inverugie passed into the Keith
family. They had a son, Andrew, who became possessed, in right of his
mother, of the lands of Ackergill and other estates in Caithness-shire.
The descendants of this marriage continued a separate branch of the
Keiths for seven or eight generations. Mary or Marjory, the younger, was
heiress of Duffus, and married Nicol Sutherland, second son of Kenneth,
third earl of Sutherland, who fell at the battle of Halidonhill in 1333,
and with her obtained the barony of Duffus in the county of Elgin [See
DUFFUS, lord.] In consequence he added the arms of Cheyne to his
paternal coat of Sutherland.
From the
Cheynes of Inverugie descended several very considerable families, as
the Cheynes of Arnage, Esselmont, Straloch, Dundarg, Pitfitchie, &c.
Most of these are now extinct in the male line. The last of the family
of Arnage was the learned James Cheyne (Jacobus Cheynaeus ab Arnage),
professor at Douay, of whom a notice follows.
A son of
Cheyne of Inverugie married the heiress of Marshal of Esselmont, and
with her got the lands of that name, on account of which the family
quartered the arms of Marshal with their own. From this family was
descended the eminent physician, Dr. George Cheyne, of whom also a
notice follows.
Christian
Cheyne, a daughter of Cheyne of Straloch, married Sir Alexander Seton of
Seton, ancestor of the earls of Winton, and governor of Berwick, whose
son, Thomas, was hanged by Edward the Third of England, in July 1333,
because his father would not deliver up the town of Berwick to him,
before the time agreed upon, he being then a hostage in his hands.
CHEYNE, JAMES,
rector of the Scots college at Douay, was born in Aberdeenshire in the
sixteenth century. He was of the ancient family of Arnage in that
county. After studying at Aberdeen, he went to Paris, and taught
philosophy at the college of St. Barbe, from whence he removed to Douay,
and, after teaching there with great reputation, became the head of the
seminary. He was also canon and great penitentiary of the cathedral of
Tournay, and died in 1602. His works are:
Analysis in
Philosophiam Aristot. Douay, 1573, 1595, 8vo.
De Sphaera seu
Globi Coelestis Fabrica. Douay, 1575, 8vo.
De Geographia,
lib. duo. Douay, 1576, 8vo.
Orationes duo
de perfecto Philosopho et de Praedicationibus Astrologorum. Doury, 1577,
8vo.
Analysis et
Scholia in Aristot. lib. xiv. De Prima seu Divina Philosophia. Douay,
1578, 8vo.
Analysis in
Physiologiam Arisotelicam. Paris. 1580, 8vo.
CHEYNE, GEORGE,
a physician and medical writer of considerable eminence in his day, was
born in 1671, at Auchencruive, parish of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, and
educated at Edinburgh under the celebrated Dr. Pitcairn, whom, in the
preface to one of his works, he styles his “grand master and generous
friend.” After taking the degree of M.D., he repaired, about the
thirtieth year of his age, to London. He had passed his youth in close
study and great abstemiousness, but after going to the metropolis,
finding it necessary to frequent taverns in order to get into practice,
and indulging in habits of excess, he grew fat, short-breathed,
lethargic, and listless, and swelled to such an enormous size, that he
at one time exceeded thirty-two stones in weight. Having tried medicine
in vain, he next retired to the country, and lived very low. This
proving ineffectual, he went to Bath, and drank the waters, but without
permanent relief. On his return to London he had recourse to a milk and
vegetable diet, which removed his complaints. His bulk was reduced to
almost one-third; he recovered his strength, activity and cheerfulness,
with the free and perfect use of his faculties; and, by regular
observance of this regimen, he reached a good old age. It was his custom
to practise in London in winter, and in Bath in summer. He died at the
latter place April 12, 1743, in his 72d year. Besides his medical
publications, he was the author of ‘Philosophical Principles of Natural
Religion,’ published in 1705, at which time he was a fellow of the Royal
Society, and dedicated to the earl of Roxburgh, at whose request, and
for whose use, it was written; and also of a work of Fluxions, which was
replied to by the celebrated French mathematician Abraham de Moivre, and
regarding which he himself in after life said that it was conceived in
ambition and brought forth in vanity. – Dr. Cheyne’s works are:
A New Theory
of Acute and Slow-continued Fevers; wherein, besides the appearance of
such, and the manner of their cure, occasionally the Structure of the
Glands, and the manner and laws of Secretion, the operation of
purgative, vomitive, and mercurial medicines are mechanically explained.
Lond. 1702, 8vo. 1722, 8vo, 1724, 8vo. To this he prefixed an Essay
concerning the improvements of the Theory of Medicine.
Remarks on two
late Pamphlets written by Dr. Oliphant against Dr. Pitcairn’s, and the
New Theory of Fevers. Edin. 1702, 8vo.
Fluxionum
Methodus inversa; sive quantitatum fluentium leges generaliores. Lond.
1703, 4to.
Rudimentorum
Methodi Fluxionum inversa Specimina adversus Abr. de Moivre. Lond. 1703,
1705, 4to.
Philosophical
Principles of Natural Religion; containing the Elements of Natural
Philosophy, and the proofs for Natural Religion arising from them. Lond.
1705, 8vo. 1706 , 8vo.
Philosophical
Principles of Religion, Natural and Revealed. Lond. 1715, 1736, 8vo.
Observations
concerning the Nature and True Method of Treating the Gout. Together
with an Account of the Nature and Qualities of the Bath Waters, the
manner of using them and the Diseases in which they are proper; as also
the Nature and Cure of most Chronical Distempers. Lond. 1720, 8vo. 1722,
1725, 8vo.
De Natura
Febrae ejusque lazae sive resolutae morbis tractatus. Lond. 1725, 8vo.
Paris, 1742.
Essay on
Health and Long Life. Lond. 1725, 8vo.
The English
Malady or a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds; as spleen,
vapours, lowness of spirits, hypochondriacal and hysterical distempers,
&c. Lond. 1733, 1735, 1739, 8vo. Dublin, 1733, 8vo.
An Essay on
Regimen; together with five Discourses, medical, moral, and
philosophical; serving to illustrate the principles and theory of
Philosophical Medicine, and point out some of its moral consequences.
Lond. 1738, 1740, 1753, 8vo. In Italian, Padua, 1765.
The Natural
Method of curing the Diseases of the Body, and the disorders of the Mind
depending on the Body; in three parts. London, 1742, 8vo.
An Account of
himself, and of his various Cures. Lond. 1743, 1753, 8vo.
