Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/249

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Nevile
243
Neville

fever still pursued them; and shortly after their arrival there Nevell himself sickened and died, partly, it was thought, of vexation at the ill-success of the campaign. His will, at Somerset House (Pyne, 247), signed 2 Nov. 1696, gives 50l. to each of two sisters, Elizabeth Nevell and Martha Carpenter; the rest of the property to be divided equally between his wife, Mary, and two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. The will was proved by the widow on 2 Nov. 1697.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. ii. 63; Commission and Warrant Books in Public Record Office; Notes from the papers of Charles Sergison (d. 1732), clerk of the acts, 1689–1719, now in the possession of the family, kindly contributed by Mr. W. Laird Clowes; Lediard's Naval Hist. See also Troude's Batailles Navales de la France, i. 236–7.]

J. K. L.

NEVILE or NEVYLE and NEVILL. [See Neville.]

NEVILLE, ALAN de (d. 1191?), judge, son of Ærnisius de Neville, was probably descended from Gilbert de Neville, who commanded William the Conqueror's fleet [see under Neville, Hugh de. Alan's brother, also Gilbert de Neville, was an ancestor of the Nevilles of Raby [see under Neville, Robert de (d. 1282)]. He is first mentioned in 1165 as a judge of the exchequer, and may have been also a ‘Marescallus Regis.’ In the following year he was appointed justice of the forests, and continued till his death to be chief justice of forests throughout England (Roger de Hoveden, Rolls Ser. ii. 289). He held various lands in Lincolnshire (cf. Pipe Rolls, ed. 1844, pp. 25, 116, 137), and was granted the Savernake Forest in Wiltshire by Henry II (Madox, Exch. ed. 1769, ii. 220). He supported the king loyally against Becket (see Materials for Life of Becket, Rolls Ser. v. 73), and for this was excommunicated by the archbishop in 1166, afterwards receiving absolution from Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, conditionally on his going to Rome on his way to Jerusalem and submitting there to the pope. In 1168 Becket excommunicated him again for committing his chaplain to prison. As late as 1189 he was holding pleas of the forest (Pipe Rolls, ed. 1844, 1 Ric. I). He died in 2 Richard I (3 Sept. 1190–2 Sept. 1191), leaving two sons, Alan, a justice itinerant in 1170, and Geoffrey de Neville, d. 1225 [q. v.]

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Madox's Exch. ed. 1769, i. 125; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 287; Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora (Rolls Ser.), v. 234, 244; H. J. Swallow's De Nova Villa, Newcastle, 1885; Daniel Rowland's Hist. and Genealogical Account of the Family of Nevill, 1830.]

J. A. H.

NEVILLE, ALEXANDER (d. 1392), archbishop of York, was younger brother of John, fifth lord Neville of Raby [q. v.] (Knighton, c. 2713), and was son of Ralph, fourth lord Neville [q. v.], and his wife Alice, daughter of Hugh, lord Audley (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 295). He received a prebend in York by command of Edward III in 1361, and was archdeacon of Durham from 1369 to 1371. He was elected archbishop in succession to John Thoresby, who died 6 Nov. 1373, and, a bull having been obtained, was consecrated 4 June 1374 at Westminster, and enthroned at York on 18 Dec. On his consecration he presented to his cathedral two massive silver-gilt candlesticks. As soon as he came to York he quarrelled with the dean and chapter, and specially with the treasurer, John Clifford. He also quarrelled with the canons of the collegiate churches of Beverley and Ripon, and by all means in his power endeavoured arbitrarily to override their statutes. At Beverley he met with stout resistance. He seized the revenues of the church, and in 1381 displaced six of the vicars, filling their places with six vicars choral from York, who remained at Beverley more than two years. The Beverley vicars were finally reinstated by order of the king and parliament in 1388. He also quarrelled with the citizens of York. In 1384 he removed his consistory court from York to Beverley, which he made the place of meeting for synods and convocations. When King Richard was in the neighbourhood in 1387 he redressed the grievances of the citizens, but declined to interfere in ecclesiastical quarrels (Knighton, c. 2692; Drake, Eboracum, pp. 435, 436). These Neville had prosecuted with much vigour and harshness, freely using the weapons of suspension and excommunication. Appeals were made to the pope, whose sentence was against the archbishop (Chronica Pontificum Ecclesiæ Ebor. ap. Historians of York, pp. 423, 424). These quarrels are enough to account for the cessation during his primacy of the building of the new choir at York, begun by his predecessor Thoresby (York Fabric Rolls, pp. 13, 187). However, he gave one hundred marks to the fabric, and presented the church with a splendid cope, adorned with gold and precious stones. He also repaired the archiepiscopal castle at Cawood, built new towers to it, and gave two small bells to the chapel, out of which was cast one large bell called Alexander after him.

Neville was one of the most trusted friends