From Shellingford to the 'Other House': Plague and Neville's Household Dispersal, 1603-1604

Shellingford, the “Other House,” and Plague

The necessary location correction

Neville's 16 February 1603/4 O.S. letter, printed in Winwood volume 2, p. 17, says:

“Soon after I had written unto you from my own house at Shellingford, I removed to my other house, and within a few days after one of my servants fell sick of the plague and died, and two other were sick of it, but recovered.”

The plague therefore did not occur at Shellingford on the evidence of this letter. Neville had left Shellingford before the first servant became ill. The affected place is the unnamed “other house.” Billingbear is the leading contextual candidate because it was Neville's principal inherited residence, but the letter itself does not name it.

Household consequences

Neville says the event drove him to forsake the house and disperse his family. It also made him unfit for company, especially court, and disrupted the receipt and answering of Winwood's letters. These are first-person statements about behavior and chronology.

The letter records one death and two recoveries. It does not name the servants, supply medical diagnoses beyond Neville's “plague,” or establish where each member of the dispersed family went.

Neville's political self-positioning

After explaining the disruption, Neville answers Winwood's encouragement to public service. He distinguishes not refusing service imposed upon him from having no duty to seek employment, and says he attends to his private estate and family while public affairs belong to those entrusted with them.

This is evidence of Neville's stated position in February 1604, not proof that he permanently withdrew from politics. His Union commission work later that year provides an immediate chronological check against any summary of lasting retirement.

Research targets

Search Shellingford and Billingbear parish burials, local plague orders, household and estate accounts, court attendance, and Winwood's incoming letters for the move. The result should be recorded as a location probability only if independent records place the family at Billingbear; until then, “unnamed other house, probably Billingbear” is the fullest accurate statement.

Source Control and Public Sources

The linked Winwood page controls the movement and illness chronology. Billingbear remains a contextual identification, not a word supplied by the letter.