Robert de Chesney

Robert de Chesney
Bishop of Lincoln
Ruins of the Bishop's Palace in Lincoln, which Chesney helped construct
Diocese	Diocese of Lincoln
Elected	13 December 1148
Term ended	December 1166
Predecessor	Alexander
Successor	Geoffrey
Other posts	Archdeacon of Leicester
Orders
Ordination	18 December 1148
Consecration	19 December 1148 by Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury
Personal details
Died	December 1166

Robert de Chesney (died December 1166) was a medieval English Bishop of Lincoln. He was the brother of an important royal official, William de Chesney, and the uncle of Gilbert Foliot, successively Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of London. Educated at Oxford or Paris, Chesney was Archdeacon of Leicester before his election as bishop in December 1148.

Chesney served as a royal justice in Lincolnshire during his bishopric, and maintained a close relationship with his nephew, Foliot. He was also an early patron of Thomas Becket, and gave the young cleric an office in his diocese early in Becket's career. Although shown favour by King Stephen of England, including the right to a mint, Chesney was present at the coronation of King Henry II of England in 1154 and went on to serve Henry as a royal justice. Around 1160, Chesney became embroiled in a dispute with St Albans Abbey in the diocese of Lincoln, over his right as bishop to supervise the abbey. The dispute was eventually settled when the abbey granted Chesney land in return for his relinquishing any right to oversee St Albans.

Chesney was active in his diocese; more than 240 documents relating to his episcopal career survive. They show him mediating disputes between religious houses and granting exemptions and rights in his diocese. Chesney bought a house in London to serve as an episcopal residence, constructed an episcopal palace in Lincoln, and founded a religious house outside the city. He died in December 1166, probably on the 27th, and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral.

After Henry I's death in 1135, the succession was disputed as the king's only legitimate son, William, had died in 1120. The main contenders were the king's nephews, Stephen, Count of Boulogne and his elder brother Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and his surviving legitimate daughter, Matilda, usually known as the Empress Matilda because of her first marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V. After Matilda was widowed in 1125, she returned to her father in England, who then secured her marriage to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. All the magnates of England and Normandy were required to declare fealty to Matilda as Henry's heir, but after Henry I's death in 1135 Stephen rushed to England and had himself crowned, before Theobald or Matilda could react. The Norman barons accepted Stephen as Duke of Normandy, and Theobald contented himself with his possessions in France. But Matilda was less patient: she secured the support of the king of Scotland, David I, her maternal uncle, and the support of her half-brother Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I, in 1138.