Home / Topics / Dr Richard Field (1561–1616): Cleric, Theologian, and Frequent Visitor to Henry Neville

Dr Richard Field (1561–1616): Cleric, Theologian, and Frequent Visitor to Henry Neville

Mixed Ready evidence packet

Topic: Dr Richard Field (1561–1616), Neville's Clerical Friend

Identity guardrail: this is not Shakespeare's printer

Two near-exact contemporaries named Richard Field must be kept separate.

IdentityLife and careerDocumentary relation to NevilleShakespeare relation
Dr Richard Field, cleric and theologianBorn at Hemel Hempstead on 15 October 1561; Oxford theologian; rector of Burghclere; royal chaplain; prebendary of Windsor; dean of Gloucester; died 15 November 1616His son's biography says that he often visited Sir Henry Neville and records a Neville daughter's description of her father's exceptional delight in his companyNo printing role. His relevance is Neville's learned, clerical, Windsor, and court network.
Richard Field, London printerBaptized at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1561; apprenticed in the London book trade; printed from the Vautrollier establishment; died in 1624No direct personal relationship with Neville has yet been demonstratedEntered and printed Venus and Adonis and printed Lucrece; associated bibliographically with other literary books. See richard field.

The coincidence is unusually dangerous because both men were born in 1561. The cleric's death year is 1616; the printer's is 1624. Offices, books, addresses, and relationships must therefore accompany the name whenever “Richard Field” is used.

The major source: Nathaniel Field's Some Short Memorials

The book remembered in connection with Neville is:

Nathaniel Field, Some Short Memorials Concerning the Life of that Reverend Divine Doctor Richard Field, Prebendarie of Windsor, and Dean of Glocester, published from the original by John Le Neve (London: H. Clark for Henry Clements, 1716–17).

The title page identifies the subject by ecclesiastical office and identifies the author as his son Nathaniel Field, rector of Stourton. The Folger catalogue controls the edition as ESTC T49398. A complete page-image witness is publicly available at Internet Archive.

Nathaniel says that he assembled his account long after his father's death because those most intimately acquainted with him were themselves dying or dead. John Le Neve's prefatory material says that the fair and rough copies could be produced to establish the text's authority. The work is therefore retrospective family biography, not a diary written during the visits; but it is a named, early source based on Field family papers and recollection, and its Neville passage preserves unusually specific reported family testimony.

Direct quotation: Field often visited Henry Neville

On printed page 12, Nathaniel first places Field in a Windsor–Eton learned circle:

When he was at Windsor, he often visited Sir Henrie Savill his Neighbour at Eaton College, who was his intimate Acquaintance, and one that entirely loved him.

He then turns directly to Neville:

He also often visited Sir Henrie Nevill, who lived not far from Windsor, a Man of great and eminent Parts, who had bin employed Embassadour into France by Queene Elizabeth.

The description—Sir Henry Neville, living near Windsor, formerly Elizabeth's ambassador to France—identifies Henry Neville of Billingbear and excludes other men of the surname.

Nathaniel continues with the recollection of one of Neville's daughters:

I have heard a Daughter of his say, that her Father rejoiced in no Mans Companie more then in his, and that he was in a manner overjoyed whensoever he heard that he was come unto his House; and that his Children could not bring their Father more well-come Newes.

This is not merely evidence that two men once met. The source states repeated visits—“often visited”—and describes Neville's pleasure at Field's arrival in superlative terms. The daughter is not named, so her identity must remain unresolved rather than being assigned by guesswork.

Source: Nathaniel Field, Some Short Memorials (1716–17), printed p. 12; direct image checked in the Internet Archive witness. The same passage was later compressed into the Dictionary of National Biography description that Field was “on intimate terms” with Savile and Neville, but Nathaniel's fuller wording is the controlling quotation.

What the passage reveals about Neville's social life

1. A three-person Windsor–Eton–Billingbear learned network

The Savile and Neville visits occur in the same paragraph. Field visited Sir Henry Savile at Eton, where Savile was provost, and Sir Henry Neville at the house of a man who lived “not far from Windsor.” The source therefore presents Field moving between two of Neville's most important scholarly and social locations:

This does not prove that all three men were always together. It does establish that Dr Field had close and repeated access to both Savile and Neville within the same local circuit.

2. Neville welcomed sustained learned conversation

The surrounding page describes Dr Field as a man who delighted in “the Companie of Schollars,” readily communicated his knowledge, and was remembered by another divine as exceptionally profitable company. Nathaniel then supplies the Savile and Neville visits as concrete examples. Neville's reported delight in Field's presence consequently belongs to a context of scholarly and theological conversation, not merely conventional hospitality.

The subjects of their conversations are not recorded. They should not be invented. Plausible research areas include ecclesiology, anti-Catholic controversy, the Protestant churches of Europe, royal religious policy, classical and patristic scholarship, and affairs of France; each remains a research question until supported by letters or reading evidence.

3. The relationship belongs especially to Neville's later years

Field was installed as a prebendary of Windsor in 1604 and died in November 1616, sixteen months after Neville. Nathaniel calls the Windsor scholarly setting Field's “latter time.” The visits therefore fit most naturally within the Jacobean period, when Neville was living at Billingbear, active in Parliament, and repeatedly involved in discussions of royal policy. A year-by-year visitation chronology has not yet been recovered.

Dr Field's career

Hemel Hempstead and Oxford

Nathaniel dates Field's birth to 15 October 1561 in the parish of Hemel Hempstead, about six miles from St Albans. His father, recognizing “more than ordinarie Parts,” sent him to Oxford, where he lived as a commoner at Magdalen Hall. The biography remembers his Oxford disputation as exceptional and says later students were shown “Doctor Field's Chamber” and study.

Lincoln's Inn and Burghclere

In 1594 Field became reader in divinity at Lincoln's Inn. Nathaniel says he satisfied the learned audience and “gained many Friends” there. Richard Kingsmill, a bencher and Surveyor of the Court of Wards, then presented him to the rectory of Burghclere in Hampshire:

as being desirous to have him neare unto him, that so he might enjoy his Companie and the Benefit of his Labours in the Ministerie.

Nathaniel locates the living within five miles of Newbury and close to Highclere. Field declined the more valuable St Andrew Holborn because he preferred a retired life in which he could serve, study, and write. Burghclere remained his principal country residence.

Royal chaplain and Hampton Court

Lord Hunsdon summoned Field to preach before Elizabeth in September 1598, after which he was admitted chaplain in ordinary. Under James I he continued as royal chaplain. Some Short Memorials prints the summons requiring him to attend the intended ecclesiastical conference that became the Hampton Court Conference. The printed summons is addressed “To our loving Friend, Mr. Doctor Field” and states that the king had chosen him to assist in matters concerning ecclesiastical causes.

Windsor, Oxford disputation, and Gloucester

Field became a Windsor prebendary in 1604. In 1605 he was summoned back to Oxford to dispute before James. Nathaniel reports Sir Nathaniel Brent's judgment that the exchange between Field and John Aglionby was the best disputation Brent had ever heard.

Around 1610 Field became dean of Gloucester. Nathaniel says that he did not reside there for long stretches, instead preaching four or five times a year to large audiences and spending most of his time at his country parsonage and his winters at Windsor. This pattern explains how an important dean could also remain a recurring presence in Neville's Windsor-area life.

Field's writings and intellectual position

Field's principal work was Of the Church. The first four books appeared in 1606; the fifth book and an appendix followed in 1610; the expanded five-book edition appeared at Oxford in 1628. The book defended the Church of England against Roman Catholic controversialists while arguing historically about the continuity and marks of the true church. A searchable public text of the 1628 edition is available through EEBO-TCP at the University of Michigan.

Nathaniel reports that when Field began the work, Dr Kettle warned him that religious controversy would bring endless answers and replies. Field answered:

I will so write that they shall have no great Mind to Answere me.

The biography then claims that the main substance of the work was never answered, although particular passages were challenged.

This theological importance matters to the Neville topic because the friendship gives Neville direct personal access to one of the period's most learned defenders of the English church settlement. It does not show Neville agreeing with every proposition in Of the Church. Ownership, annotations, quotations, or correspondence would be needed to establish textual reception.

A public catalogue error that demonstrates the danger

The Folger's Shakespeare Documented aggregation page is headed “Field, Richard, 1561–1616”, but the documents beneath that heading describe the Stratford printer who entered Venus and Adonis and transferred its copy. The dates in that heading belong to the cleric, not the printer. The British Book Trade Index gives the printer's death year as 1624 and records his London printing career and succession to Thomas Vautrollier.

This is a live example of the exact conflation the topic must prevent: even authoritative digital resources can attach the cleric's lifespan to the printer's records. The individual documentary pages remain useful for the Stationers' Register and book evidence, but their shared person heading should not govern the printer's life dates.

Research implications

The cleric is central to Neville's intellectual biography in a way the printer is not. The 1716 testimony adds:

  1. a recurring learned visitor to Neville's house;
  2. a direct personal bridge between Neville and the Windsor ecclesiastical establishment;
  3. a second documented link—alongside Henry Savile—to the most learned circles around Windsor and Eton;
  4. access to an important theologian who worked across Oxford, Lincoln's Inn, the royal chapel, Hampton Court, Windsor, and Gloucester;
  5. a family recollection of Neville's emotional response to learned company.

The printer remains important to Shakespearean publication and to the Field-attributed literary books already studied elsewhere. The cleric supplies the direct Neville friendship. Those two propositions must never be collapsed into a single “Richard Field” connection.

Next research

  1. Search the complete printed and manuscript Field papers listed or quoted by Nathaniel for Neville, Savile, Billingbear, Windsor, and theological consultation.
  2. Identify the surviving children and residences of Neville's daughters in the 1660s, when Nathaniel composed the memoir, without assigning the unnamed speaker prematurely.
  3. Search Windsor Chapter records for Field's residence dates, attendance, preaching, and household.
  4. Search Field's surviving books for presentation copies, provenance, or annotations connected with Neville, Savile, Billingbear, or Eton.
  5. Search Savile correspondence for Field and reconstruct whether the three men met jointly.
  6. Compare the intellectual subjects of Field's 1606/1610 work with books securely present in Neville's library, while keeping shared ownership or borrowing separate from demonstrated conversation.

Citations and public access

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