William de Chesney

William de Chesney
Ancient plan of Oxford Castle, according to a 19th-century engraving. Chesney held Oxford Castle during Stephen's reign.
Personal details
Spouse(s)	Margaret de Lucy
Relations	niece and heiress Matilda

William de Chesney (flourished 1142–1161) was an Anglo-Norman magnate during the reign of King Stephen of England (reigned 1135–1154) and King Henry II of England (reigned 1154–1189). Chesney was part of a large family; one of his brothers became Bishop of Lincoln and another Abbot of Evesham Abbey. Stephen may have named him Sheriff of Oxfordshire. Besides his administrative offices, Chesney controlled a number of royal castles, and served Stephen during some of the king's English military campaigns. Chesney's heir was his niece, Matilda, who married Henry fitzGerold.

Following King Henry I's death in 1135, the succession was disputed between the Henry's nephews—Stephen and his elder brother, Theobald II, Count of Champagne—and Henry's surviving legitimate child Matilda, usually known as the Empress Matilda because of her first marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V. Matilda's brother, and King Henry's only legitimate son, William died in 1120, leaving Matilda as Henry's only legitimate offspring. After Matilda was widowed in 1125, she returned to England, where her father married her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. All the magnates of England and Normandy were required to declare fealty to Matilda as Henry's heir, but when Henry I died in 1135, Stephen rushed to England and had himself crowned before either Theobald or Matilda could react. The Norman barons accepted Stephen as Duke of Normandy, and Theobald acquiesced to his brother's usurpation.

Matilda, though, was not reconciled to losing the throne, and secured the support of the Scottish king, David, who was her maternal uncle. In 1138 she also secured the support of her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester the Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I. Most of the reign of King Stephen was dominated by the efforts of Matilda and later her son, Henry of Anjou to oust Stephen from the throne. The height of the civil war was from 1142 to 1148, but it began in 1138 when Robert of Gloucester declared for Matilda, after previously supporting Stephen. Traditionally, historians have referred to the period of civil war as "The Anarchy", but recent scholarship has rejected the extreme view of the time period as lawless; most historians see the reign as disordered but not highly so, and Stephen as weak but not useless.