societies, was made an honorary D.C.L. at Oxford in 1850. He was gazetted colonel commandant of the 14th brigade royal artillery in 1864 and lieutenant-general the same year. He never accepted any rewards or honours from government, though it is stated that some offers were tardily made to him. He barely exacted the payment of his expenses in the expeditions and the cost of the publication of his great work on the survey. As an explorer Chesney must hold a very high rank. His energy, courage, and perseverance were unbounded, and his pursuit of his mission was unselfish and zealous and devoted. His published works are dry, but surprisingly full of learning and research, when it is remembered that he had only received an elementary military education. His personal characteristics were a devotion to duty which has rarely been equalled, a restless energy which lasted to extreme old age, a strong religious belief which induced a constant habit of almost painful self-examination and contrition for the most trifling faults, but which could not restrain the rare kindliness of nature which made him a staunch and unchanging friend and a devoted husband and relation. He married thrice: (1) in 1822, a daughter of John Forster and niece of Sir Albert Gledstanes, who died in 1825, leaving one daughter; (2) in 1839, Everilda, daughter of Sir John Fraser, who died without issue in 1840; and (3) in 1848, Louisa, daughter of Edward Fletcher, who survives him, and by whom he had four sons and one daughter, of whom one son died in boyhood.
[Life of General F. R. Chesney, by his Wife and Daughter, edited by Stanley Lane-Poole, 1885; personal information.]
CHESNEY, ROBERT de (d. 1166), ('cujus cognomen est de Querceto,' 'of the Oakwood:' Hen. Hunt ), fourth bishop of Lincoln, was by birth an Englishman, but, as his name indicates, of a Norman family. At an early age he was appointed archdeacon of Leicester, and is mentioned by his contemporary, Henry of Huntingdon, in his letter 'De Contemptu Mundi' (p. 302), as holding that office with great credit. While still a young man he was chosen bishop of Lincoln, on the death of Alexander [q. v.], by the common consent of the whole church of Lincoln (Dicento, i. 258), towards the close of 1148, and was consecrated at Lambeth by Archbishop Theobald, 19 Dec. of the same year. According to Henry of Huntingdon (p. 281), the king (Stephen), clergy, and people all accepted his election with the greatest joy. As archdeacon, Diceto (also his contemporary) tells us, he had acquired a reputation for great simplicity and humility, which would render him a welcome successor to the haughty and ostentatious Alexander, who had been far more a feudal baron than a bishop. Chesney was received at his episcopal city with the greatest tokens of joy and devout reverence, both by clergy and people, who, 'having expected much in their new bishop, found him exceed their anticipations' (Hen. Hunt. ib.) The young bishop, however, evidently a quiet, unambitious man, had not the strength of character or practical wisdom required in a critical epoch. Alan, Becket's biographer, while praising his simplicity, speaks very slightingly of his judgment: 'simplex quidem homo et minus discretus' (Gervase, i. 183; Becket Materials, ii. 327). Giraldus Cambrensis, not however the most trustworthy of witnesses, charges him with having inflicted enormous loss on the see of Lincoln by his over-readiness to give away what was not rightly his own to give. Some of the episcopal estates he bestowed on his nieces as marriage portions, while four churches and a prebena were alienated by him for the benefit of the Gilbertine priory of St. Catherine's, outside the South Bargate of Lincoln, which he had founded immediately after his consecration to the see. Not content with the more modest lodging in the tower over the Eastgate assigned to his predecessor. Bishop Alexander, by Henry I, he purchased for a considerable sum a site for a new episcopal residence in 1155, on which he began the erection, on a scale of much grandeur and 'at great cost,' of the palace which was afterwards carried on by his successors, Hugh of Avalon and Hugh of Wells, and finally completed, after the lapse of two centuries, by Bishop William of Alnwick [q. v.] He also, previous to 1162, purchased of the brethren of the Temple, for a hundred marks, their original house, 'The Old Temple,' in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, as a London residence for the bishops of Lincoln. By these costly works the bishop contracted a debt with Aaron the Jew of Lincoln, the most celebrated money-lender of his age, amounting to 300l. This sum was charged upon the see, the 'ornamenta' of the cathedral church beings pledged to the unbeliever as security for its repayment, to the great scandal of the church; but these were redeemed by Chesney's successor, Geoffrey, afterwards archbishop of York, on his accession to the see. Chesney obtained the grant of some markets and fairs, and the addition of a prebend to make up for that granted to the Gilbertines (Girald, Cambr. Op. vii. 34-6). But he inflicted farther injury on the see of Lincoln by his
