Anthony White's Truth and Error Discovered (1628) and Henry Neville III

Topic: Anthony White's Truth and Error Discovered (1628) and Henry Neville III

1. Overview

Anthony White's 1628 Oxford book Truth and Error Discovered is a direct printed witness to Henry Neville III as a patron shortly before his death in 1629. The book is important because it was not merely associated with the Neville family by later genealogy: the printed dedication is addressed to Sr HENRY NEVILL OF PILLINGBERE IN Berks his much honoured Patron.

This corrects an earlier research failure. The book is present in the local EEBO/TCP corpus as TCP A15075; the difficulty was not absence from EEBO, but finding it under the right spelling and bibliographic form.

2. Verified Sourced Facts

• EEBO/TCP identifies the text as A15075, Anthony White, Truth and error discouered in two sermons in St Maries in Oxford, dated 1628.
• The title page identifies the author as ANTONY WHITE, Master of Arts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
• The imprint states that the book was printed at Oxford by John Lichfield for Henry Curteyne in 1628.
• The dedication is addressed to Sr HENRY NEVILL OF PILLINGBERE IN Berks his much honoured Patron.
• The dedicatee is Henry Neville III, not the elder Sir Henry Neville, because the elder died in July 1615 and the younger Sir Henry Neville died in June 1629.
• The dedication describes Neville as White's patron and appeals to Neville's judgment and candor.
• A local EEBO image PDF of the first 32 pages has been preserved in the Neville Book research folder, and the searchable EEBO/TCP XML has been copied beside it.
• Web/Archive.org update, 2026-06-20: the local EEBO page-image PDF has now been matched to a stable Internet Archive public item, bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_truth-and-error-discover_white-anthony_1628, titled Truth and error discovered, in two sermons ... 1628, creator White, Anthony., collection pub_early-english-books-1475-1640.
• The Internet Archive item supplies public derivative files including a text PDF, DjVu OCR text, JP2 page-image ZIP, and metadata XML.
• The Internet Archive OCR is not clean enough for final diplomatic quotation, but it does locate the dedication opening and renders the key address line as HENRY. NEYILL OF ... PILALINGPBERE ... Berks his much honoured Patrom, confirming that the public item is the same witness while also showing why visual collation remains necessary.

3. Ken Feinstein Twitter, Blog, and Email Information

• Ken Feinstein sent the source trail by email on 6 July 2019 with the subject Book dedicated to Henry Neville's son.
• That email attached White_Anthony-Truth_and_error_discouered-STC-25376-1016_10-p1to32.pdf.
• Treat this email trail as a discovery/access note, not as the primary evidence. The primary evidence is the printed dedication in the 1628 book.

4. Why It Matters

• This is a direct post-1615 witness to Henry Neville III as an identifiable patron.
• It belongs with the 1619 A King and No King dedication as part of the younger Neville's publication and patronage footprint.
• It strengthens the need to treat Henry Neville III as an active figure in the posthumous Neville network, rather than merely as the elder Neville's heir.
• It should be used carefully: the dedication proves patronage language and printed association, not the full nature of White's dependence or the extent of Neville's involvement in the book.

5. Quoted Source Text

Title and imprint

• TRVTH AND ERROR DISCOVERED IN TWO SERMONS IN St MAries in Oxford.
• By ANTONY WHITE Master of Arts of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford.
• OXFORD Printed by IOHN LICHFIELD ... for Henry Curteyne. 1628.

Dedication

• Sr HENRY NEVILL OF PILLINGBERE IN Berks his much honoured Patron.
• I should much feare the exactnesse of your iudgement
• tempered with that candor
• Your Worships in my best services ANTONY WHITE.

6. Citations

• White, Anthony. Truth and error discouered in two sermons in St Maries in Oxford. Oxford: John Lichfield for Henry Curteyne, 1628. STC 25376; EEBO-TCP A15075; EEBO reel 1016:10.
• White, Anthony. Truth and error discovered, in two sermons ... 1628. Internet Archive / Early English Books, 1475-1640 public item, identifier bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_truth-and-error-discover_white-anthony_1628. Archive.org item.
• Internet Archive OCR text for the same item: DjVu text.
• Local EEBO/TCP XML: A15075_truth_and_error_discouered.xml
• Local EEBO image PDF: White_Anthony-Truth_and_error_discouered-STC-25376-1016_10-p1to32.pdf
• Related biographical control: sir_henry_neville_iii_1588_1629.md
• Related EEBO sweep: eebo_henry_neville_variant_sweep.md

7. Notes on Access

• The local EEBO/TCP corpus identifies this book as A15075.
• The relevant surname and place forms are Nevill and Pillingbere, which can cause ordinary modern-spelling searches for Neville and Billingbear to miss the witness.
• The local PDF is an image witness for the opening matter; the XML is the better search/extraction witness, but the PDF should be retained for page-image verification.
• The stable public page-image route is now the Internet Archive item above. Use the IA item for public access and the local EEBO PDF/XML for controlled extraction; do not use the rough IA OCR as final transcription.

Third-Batch Fact-Source Update, 2026-06-24

• This packet is already correctly hardened around witness type: IA/public access for images, local EEBO PDF for visual checking, and local XML/TCP A15075 for extraction.
• The research value is the younger Henry Neville III dedication/name-form evidence, not a broad Neville-family literary inference. The old-spelling forms Nevill and Pillingbere should be preserved in searches and citations.
• Next upgrade: recheck the local PDF images against the XML extraction before quoting any dedicatory language in final book prose.