Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/250

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Neville
244
Neville

of Richard II, and was a conspicuous member of the court party. In the autumn of 1386 he was included in the commission appointed to regulate the affairs of the kingdom and the royal household (Rolls of Parliament, iii. 221; Stubbs, Constitutional History, iii. 475, 476). From that time at least he seems to have been constantly at the court, where his presence was displeasing to the lords of Gloucester's party, for he encouraged the king to resist the commissioners, to withdraw himself from their society, and to listen only to the advice of his favourites, telling him that if he yielded to the lords he would have no power left, and that they were making him a merely titular king (Chronicon Angliæ, p. 374). He is said to have been one of those who advised Richard to leave the court in 1387, and join his favourite Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland, in Wales, and to take active measures against the opposition (ib. p. 379; Vita Ricardi, pp. 77, 84). He assisted in placing the king's case against the commission before the judges at Shrewsbury (Knighton, c. 2693), and is said to have advised that Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel should be surprised and arrested. Accompanying the king to Nottingham in his hasty progress through the country, he took part in the council held there, and on 25 Aug. obtained and signed the decision of the judges in the king's favour (ib. c. 2696; Chronicon Angliæ, p. 382). He entered London with the king on 10 Nov., going in front of the procession, with his cross borne before him. On the 12th Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, who were advancing with an armed force towards London, sent William Courtenay [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, and others to Richard, demanding that Neville, Michael de la Pole, the duke of Ireland, and others should be punished as traitors, and two days later formally appealed them of treason. Richard received the lords at Westminster on the 17th, and promised them that Neville and the four others whom they accused should attend the next parliament and answer for their acts. On the 20th Neville fled, and it was believed went northwards (ib. 2701); he soon, probably, went over to Flanders. In the parliament that met in February 1388 he and the other four were appealed of treason by the lords. He did not appear, and was pronounced guilty. Being a churchman he escaped sentence of death, but was outlawed, all his lands and goods were forfeited, and further proceedings were to be taken (ib. cc. 2713–27; Rolls of Parliament, iii. 229–36). An application was made to Pope Urban VI, who in April issued a bull translating him to the see of St. Andrews. Urban's authority was not acknowledged by the Scots, so this translation was illusory, and had merely the same effect as deprivation. Neville ended his days as a parish priest at Louvain, where he died on 16 May 1392, and was buried in the church of the Carmelites in that city. In 1397 he was declared to have been loyal.

[Historians of York, ii. 422–5 (Rolls Ser.); Knighton, cc. 2685–91, 2693–728, ed. Twysden; Vita Ric. II. pp. 77, 84, 89, 97, 100, 106, ed. Hearne; Chron. Angliæ a mon. S. Albani, pp. 374, 379, 382, 384, 386 (Rolls Ser.); T. Walsingham, ii. 152, 163, 164, 166, 172, 179 (Rolls Ser.); Rolls of Parl. iii. 229–36; Fabric Rolls of York, pp. 13, 187 (Surtees Soc.); Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 107, 174, 303; Drake's Eboracum, pp. 435, 436; Stubbs's Const. Hist. ed. 1875, ii. 470, 476–81.]

W. H.

NEVILLE, ALEXANDER (1544–1614), scholar, born in 1544, was brother of Thomas Neville [q. v.], dean of Canterbury, and son of Richard Neville of South Leverton, Nottinghamshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Mantell of Heyford, Northamptonshire. Towards the end of his life the father removed to Canterbury, where he died on 3 Aug. 1599. His mother's sister Margaret was mother of Barnabe Googe [q. v.] Alexander was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1581 at the same time as Robert, earl of Essex. On leaving the university he seems to have studied law in London, where he became acquainted with George Gascoigne [q. v.] the poet. He is one of the five friends whom Gascoigne describes as challenging him to write poems on Latin mottoes proposed by themselves (cf. Gascoigne, Flowres of Poesie, 1572). Neville soon entered the service of Archbishop Parker, apparently as a secretary, and edited for him 'Tabula Heptarchiae Saxonicae' (Tanner). In an extant letter in Latin addressed to his master, Neville drew an attractive picture of the studious life led by the archbishop and his secretaries (Strype, Parker, iii. 346). He attended Parker's funeral on 6 June 1575 (ib. ii. 432), and wrote an elegy in Latin heroics (ib. ii. 436-7). He remained in the service of Parker's successors, Grindal and Whitgift (cf. Strype, Whitgift, i. 435). Possibly he is identical with the Alexander Neville who sat in parliament as M.P. for Christchurch, Hampshire, in 1585, and for Saltash in 1601. He died on 4 Oct. 1614, and was buried on 9 Oct. in Canterbury Cathedral, where the dean erected a monument to commemorate both his brother and himself (Battely, Canterbury, App. p. 7). He married Jane, daughter of Richard Buncombe of Morton, Bucking-