Early Life
Neville was the first born child of Sir Henry Neville Senior (d. 1593) and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John Gresham of Fulham in Middlesex. His father was the great-great-grandson of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland and Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland. Joan was daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was in turn a son of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.
Henry grew up at Billingbear House at Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire, was educated at Merton College, Oxford and sat in Parliament as the member for New Windsor (1584, 1586 and 1593), Sussex (1589), Liskeard (1597) and Berkshire (1604, 1614). He served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1595. Before his father's death, he lived at the old Archbishop's Palace at Mayfield in Sussex where he ran a highly successful cannon manufactury. He was apppointed Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire in 1596 and moved to Billingbear the next year. He was knighted in 1597.
Read more about this topic: Henry Neville (politician)
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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