The name Chenies is thought to derive from Cheney; a family of that name once being the Lords of the Manor. In 1526 John Russell married the heiress to the Cheney estate and became the village’s most notable personality. The owner of a small Dorset estate and a gifted linguist he had the good fortune to be presented to Henry VII, who made him a gentleman usher — the first step to an earldom and the great Bedford fortune.
Under Henry VIII John Russell became Lord High Admiral of England and he served both Edward VI and Queen Mary Tudor as Lord Privy Seal. By the time of his marriage to Anne, he had been knighted, fought in the war in France in 1513 and undertaken diplomatic errands on Henry’s behalf.
He was with Henry at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, subsequently lost his right eye at the siege of Morlaix in 1522. He was made knight marshal of the royal household, and undertook a number of secret missions on behalf of Henry VIII, including conducting negotiations with Charles, Duke of Bourbon, who was ready to betray the French king, Francis I. In 1524 he undertook negotiations with Pope Clement VII in Rome, and was present at the battle of Pavia in the following year. In 1527 he was sent as ambassador to Clement, who also employed him as a negotiator. He became Member of Parliament for Buckingham in the parliament of 1529 and took an active part in suppressing the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. He was appointed the controller of the king’s household in 1537, made a privy councillor in 1538 and then Lord High Admiral, High Steward of the Duchy of Cornwall and a knight of the garter.
In March of 1539 he was created Baron Russell of Chenies, and in 1542 became high steward of the University of Oxford, and Keeper of the Privy Seal. In 1545 he was granted command of an army in the west of England, and was one of the executors of Henry VIII’s will upon his death in 1547. He continued to serve the crown under Edward VI, and campaigned against the Devonshire rebellion of 1549, winning a decisive victory at Clyst St Mary near Exeter. In January of 1550 he was created Earl of Bedford.
It is said that his portrait shows a man who was cautious, prudent and thoughtful and this he must indeed have been to serve four Tudor monarchs and to die peacefully in his bed! John Russell loved the village. He enlarged the manor so that he could entertain Henry VIII who visited in 1534 and 1540 and he expressed the wish to be buried in the village church. This his widow arranged and built the Chapel in which all the subsequent Earls and Dukes have been buried up to the present time. At the same time that the manor was enlarged the village also grew and became considerably bigger than it is today, though there are still several timber-framed cottages dating from this period.
John Russell was succeeded as Earl of Bedford by his son Francis. He had campaigned alongside his father in France, and had been Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire from 1547 to 1552. Unlike his father, he supported the reformers, as a result of which he was imprisoned during the early years of Mary’s reign, and then spent time in exile in Italy, fighting at the battle of St Quentin in 1557. He saw a degree of favour in the latter years of Mary’s reign, being made lord-lieutenant of the counties of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset early in 1558. The accession of Elizabeth to the throne saw him returning to court life. He was made a privy councillor, and undertook diplomatic missions to Charles
IX of France and Mary Queen of Scots. Between 1564 and 1567 he held the post of governor of Berwick and warden of the east marches of Scotland. In 1576 he was president of the council of Wales, and in 1581 was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange a marriage between Elizabeth and Francis, duke of Anjou. He died in London in July 1585, of gangrene. Three of his four sons predeceased him, and he was succeeded as 3rd Earl of Bedford by his grandson, Edward Russell.
A later and quite different personality, whose memory is still treasured in the village was the Rev Lord Wriothesley Russell, a younger son of the 6th Duke of Bedford. He came to be Rector of Chenies in 1829, when he was 25 years old and stayed until his death in 1886. Although offered high office in the Church he refused to leave his village flock. In the days before the school was built he taught the village children to read and write in the Rectory kitchen and it is recorded that he refused to have a new carpet in his study as the men would not like to walk on it in their boots. The affection in which he was held is attested to by the lovely illuminated address, with its charming watercolour scenes, which still hangs in the church. This address was presented to the Rector by the villagers to mark his 50th anniversary as their priest. On each side of the address may be seen the signatures of the donors -said to include the whole village. It is interesting that some of these names are still to be found either in the village or the surrounding area. Life in the village must have continued with little change for many years. The men worked on the estate farms and woodlands. Dodd’s Mill, at one time a paper mill, functioned as a corn mill until 50 years or so ago and watercress was and is still grown in spring water near the Chess.
The larger houses in the area provided work for both men and women. The village blacksmith shod horses and repaired farm machinery. Bread was baked locally and the necessities of life could be bought in the village shops. With mechanisation, however, came change. Young people were forced to seek employment in nearby towns. Buses and cars took people to more urban areas to shop at more competitive prices and so the local shops closed, the last being the post office in 1975. In 1954 the Duke of Bedford sold his Chenies estate in order to pay death duties, bringing to a close the Russell family’s long tenure of the estate. However, the split between Woburn, the seat of the Russell family and Chenies is not complete. The family still show an interest in the affairs of the village and it is still in the Bedford Chapel in St Michael’s church that the Dukes are laid to rest among their ancestors.
content source:
Article written by members of the Buckinghamshire Federation of Women’s Institutes for the publication “The Buckinghamshire Village Book” (1987) and reproduced here with their permission
Further edits sourced from Wessex archaeology (January 2005). “Chenies Manor, Chenies, buckinghamshire: An archaeological excavation of a tudor manor house and an assessment of the results” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 January 2016. Retrieved 2 Dec 2025.
contributor: Andy Homewood, Rachel Bishop date published: 24/11/2025