Appendix A
From the Tower in 1601, Henry Neville appealed for help for his wife and their eight children. In 1599 he had reported the death of a recently born son. On 3 April 1602, still imprisoned, he wrote to Robert Cecil about his wife’s distress (spelling modernized):
My poor wife, whose state I do much fear, as being overcharged with grief and sorrow, besides my troubles, with the late loss of one of her children, and the likelihood to lose another: these afflictions coming one upon another I doubt will much endanger her weak body and mind.1
The child who had died was likely their daughter Dorothy, then about eight, although the letter does not name her.2 Neville researcher David Ewald has suggested a possible connection with King Lear, where Lear imagines life in prison with Cordelia, before her death:
No, no, no, no. Come, let’s away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
—King Lear, 5.33
Neville’s daughter Anna was buried in October 1602, a separate loss later that year.4
The household continued to grow. In February 1609, Dudley Carleton reported that Anne had borne another boy after five boys and five girls. Richard’s baptism the following day fits that report. Another daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized in November 1610. Her father is expressly called Sir Henry Neville “senior,” distinguishing him from his married son of the same name.5
The table brings together fourteen named children and the unnamed infant son who died in 1599. It is a reconstruction from letters, registers and family documents, not a list of fifteen children living together. The daughters whose baptisms have not been found cannot be placed in a secure birth order. Baptism dates below are not birth dates; double years, such as 1608/9, identify dates before the English year then began on 25 March.
| Child | Baptism or early record | Marriage, connections and later evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Henry, the heir | 10 March 1587/8, Mayfield | Studied at Merton College, Oxford. Married Elizabeth Smythe, 2 May 1609; father of Richard, the future ward. Died 29 June 1629.6 |
| Elizabeth, elder | Baptism not located | Married Henry Berkeley, 1 February 1608/9.7 |
| Katherine | Baptism not located | Married Richard Brooke, 13 October 1608.7 |
| Mary | Baptism not located | Married Edward Lewknor, 29 May 1610; buried at Denham, 28 October 1642.8 |
| Dorothy, elder | 25 November 1593, Waltham St Lawrence | Probably died before the younger Dorothy was baptized in 1605; no burial securely identified.4 |
| Frances | Probably 23 February 1594/5, St Margaret Lothbury | Married Richard Worsley, 30 May 1610; later Jeremy Brett, by 1637. Her will of 1659 was proved in 1661.9 |
| William | July 1596, Waltham St Lawrence | His will of 8 September 1630 names his wife Catherine. It was proved on 5 March 1639/40.10 |
| Unnamed infant son | Recently born in 1599 | His father reported his death in September 1599.1 |
| Anna (Anne) | Baptism not located | Buried at Waltham St Lawrence, 20 October 1602.4 |
| Edward | 28 November 1602, All Hallows Barking | Buried at Shellingford, 22 December 1632.11 |
| Robert | 12 August 1604, Waltham St Lawrence | Likely Robert Cecil’s godson.12 Named in the family’s provision of 30 April 1615; later fate not established.13 |
| Dorothy, younger | 17 November 1605, Waltham St Lawrence | Married Richard Catelyn. Her memorial records her death on 29 September 1672.14 |
| Charles | 6 September 1607, Binfield | Named in the 1615 provision. A burial of 29 October 1626 may be his.13 |
| Richard | 28 February 1608/9, Binfield | Apparently the new son announced by Carleton the day before his baptism.5 Named in the 1615 provision; later fate not established.13 |
| Elizabeth, younger | 11 November 1610, Binfield | Probably one of the two younger daughters provided for in 1615; later fate not established.13 |
By the time of Neville’s death, the family included married children with households of their own and younger children still to be provided for. The 1615 arrangements name five younger sons—William, Edward, Robert, Charles and Richard—and set aside £3,000 for two younger daughters. The heir, Henry, was treated separately. These were distinct provisions within a large family, not a complete list of everyone then alive.13
Repeated names require particular care. There were two daughters called Dorothy and two called Elizabeth. The younger Elizabeth’s baptism cannot be that of the daughter who had married Berkeley the previous year. Likewise, Richard, baptized in 1608/9, was the ambassador’s son; the Richard whose wardship is discussed in this book was his grandson, a son of Henry the heir.6
The younger Dorothy can be followed to 1672, more than half a century after her father’s death. For several of her siblings the record ends much earlier, without a securely identified death. The table preserves those gaps rather than filling them with dates belonging to another Neville.
Notes
Notes and sources
Henry Neville to Robert Cecil, endorsed 4 August 1601, Hatfield House, Cecil Papers 87/61; Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, XI (1906), pp. 320–321 (printed text). For the infant son, Ralph Winwood, Memorials of Affairs of State, ed. Edmund Sawyer (1725), I, pp. 114–115 (text). For the April loss, Neville to Cecil, 3 April 1602, Cecil Papers 92/99; Salisbury Manuscripts, XII, pp. 95–96 (text). The elder Dorothy is a possible identification for that unnamed child, not an established one. If the child was someone else, the family total would increase.↩︎
Dorothy was baptized at Waltham St Lawrence on 25 November 1593. If baptized in infancy, she would have been about eight in April 1602. The identification rests on her disappearance from the later family record and the baptism of another Dorothy in November 1605; no burial entry securely identifies her with the loss reported in April 1602. The letter establishes that a child died during Neville’s imprisonment, not that the child was imprisoned with him.↩︎
William Shakespeare, King Lear, 5.3, Lear addressing Cordelia after their capture, Folger Shakespeare Library text. Cordelia is alive during this speech and is killed later in the same scene. Ewald’s suggestion concerns imprisonment and the subsequent loss of a child; it is not a claim of shared wording between the letter and the play.↩︎
Waltham St Lawrence parish register, baptisms of 25 November 1593, July 1596, 12 August 1604 and 17 November 1605, and burial of Anna, 20 October 1602; Berkshire parish-register images. Reuse of Dorothy’s name supports an earlier death but does not date it. William’s baptism day is unclear, so only the month is given.↩︎
Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 27 February 1608/9, The National Archives, SP 14/43, f. 122 (manuscript). His account naturally suggests eleven children then living, but does not expressly say “living.” Binfield parish register, baptisms of Richard, 28 February 1608/9, and Elizabeth, 11 November 1610; Berkshire parish-register images. The later baptism would imply twelve survivors only if there had been no intervening death.↩︎
Andrew Thrush, “Neville, Sir Henry III (1588–1629), of Billingbear, Waltham St. Lawrence, Berks.,” in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604–1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris (2010), biography; St Margaret Lothbury parish register, marriage, 2 May 1609. The biography identifies Richard as Henry’s son and heir.↩︎
St Margaret Lothbury parish register, marriages of 13 October 1608, 1 February 1608/9, 2 May 1609 and 29–30 May 1610 (register images). For the daughters’ family identifications, W. C. Metcalfe, ed., The Visitation of Berkshire, 1664–6 (1882), p. 66 (pedigree). The pedigree is selective, not a complete list of children.↩︎
St Margaret Lothbury parish register, 29 May 1610; Denham Parish Registers, burial entries, p. 54 (printed register).↩︎
St Margaret Lothbury parish register, 23 February 1594/5 (record): “Francis,” daughter of Henry Nevell; the mother is not named, so the identification remains probable. Marriage, 30 May 1610. Frances Worsley’s will, 18 October 1659, proved 27 May 1661, TNA, PROB 11/304, p. 217 (registered will). For her second marriage, W. H. Long, ed., The Oglander Memoirs (1888), p. 116, note 2, names Jeremy Brett and Frances as husband and wife in 1637 (printed page). This is Long’s account of the litigation, rather than a marriage-register entry. Probate supplies a latest date for death, not its exact date.↩︎
William Nevill of Chichester, will, 8 September 1630, proved 5 March 1639/40, TNA, PROB 11/182, p. 243 (registered will).↩︎
All Hallows Barking parish register, baptism, 28 November 1602 (record); Shellingford parish register, burial, 22 December 1632, Berkshire parish-register collection.↩︎
Neville to Ralph Winwood, London, 19 August 1604, in Memorials of Affairs of State, ed. Edmund Sawyer (1725), II, pp. 25–26 (printed letter). Neville hoped that “My Lord Cecyll” would lodge at his house and thereby “second … a late Favour he did me to christen my Son.” The son is unnamed, but Robert’s baptism seven days earlier makes the identification strong. The wording supports Cecil’s role as godfather; it does not mean that Cecil performed the baptism.↩︎
Royal Berkshire Archives, D/EN/F6/1/19, abstract of the feoffment of 30 April 1615; compare D/EN/F6/1/16, estate instructions, July 1612 (catalogue series). The younger daughters are not named in the £3,000 clause; Dorothy and Elizabeth are the likely identifications. The Waltham burial of Charles, 29 October 1626, is a probable identification only. A 1623 burial of Elizabeth has not been securely assigned and is not used as either daughter’s death date.↩︎
Waltham St Lawrence parish register, 17 November 1605; Charles Parkin, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, VIII, p. 35 (memorial text). The memorial names her as Richard Catelyn’s wife and gives 29 September 1672. Its stated age, 67, should not be used to replace the baptism date with a calculated birth date.↩︎