SIR HENRY NEVILLE - THE HIDDEN PERSUADER

by

Brenda James

In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the notes on Sir Henry Neville (1564? - 1615) state that he was far more influential than appears on the surface [Greengrass, 2004 - 2007]. During his lifetime, his name was spoken of in awe and respect; he was influential in political circles, strongly suggested for Leader of the House, supported by many members of the aristocracy, chosen as official messenger between the Commons and the Lords, and eventually put forward as the favourite candidate for the office of Secretary of State. Moreover, he was lauded as greatly learned, and sought out as a writing consultant by all those who had access to him - from playwrights to the King himself. Why, therefore, has he seemingly been somewhat marginalised by chroniclers through the ages? The reasons for this apparent neglect can be viewed from two different directions. Firstly, Sir Henry’s own perception of his personal circumstances led him to be wary of public acclaim. Secondly, most official recorders of the time eventually found Sir Henry too complex, difficult and dangerous to assess and chronicle.  This Paper discusses and explains these fascinating circumstances.

Sir Henry: his Inheritance and his Birth

The Nevilles had been a great - and openly-perceived - force during the Plantagenet dynasty. But most Nevilles found it wise to tolerate a quieter existence, after the disastrous Wars of the Roses. The last publicly prominent member of their family had emerged during this time. He was Richard Neville (1428 - 1471), Earl of Warwick who, because of his very visible power and influence, gained the title ‘Kingmaker’. While having no wish to be monarch, he moulded himself into a supporter and advisor to whichever contender for the throne he perceived (from time to time during the Wars) as possessing the best combination of hereditary rights and personal qualities. He had also become a leading figure in promoting manufacture and trade, and therefore had the support of merchants as well as courtiers. (He is, of course, heroicised in Shakespeare-Neville’s Henry VI plays.) Yet despite all this he was killed in battle, after which shock the nobles turned to a different family for leadership and guidance.

Dynastically and hereditarily speaking, the Nevilles still possessed the best right to the Throne of England, yet it was another family - the Tudors - who eventually succeeded in gaining the office of Kingship. The Nevilles could now easily be perceived as a threat to the new dynasty, which fact put them in a dangerous position. As a complex, numerous and potent family, they still maintained enormous private wealth and power, but they now necessarily saw fit to wield that power stealthily and cautiously.

Then, quite by a chance of nature, one of the Nevilles possessed a quality that got him quickly noticed at Court. This was Sir Henry’s grandfather, Edward Neville (1485 - 1539) of Addington Park, who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to the Tudor King, Henry VIII. It soon became obvious that Sir Edward was, however, disposed to use his gift for fun as well as possible advantage. This seemed harmless enough at first, for both Sir Edward and the King enjoyed the joke. But Edward Neville went a step too far when he masqueraded as the King himself at a Court party, even deceiving Cardinal Wolsey and thereby obtaining secrets from him. Wolsey was not so light-hearted, and now influenced the King against Sir Edward. Edward Neville, having thus lost power and influence at Court, then started to support his cousin’s claim to the throne. The result was that Edward was beheaded. This reversed what had previously become the traditional Neville roles as friends and advisors to monarchs. The Nevilles now began to emerge in Tudor imagination as potential enemy number one.

The Nevilles were rich, powerful, intelligent and popular with the people on their estates, all of which was a dangerous combination, as far as the Tudors were concerned. Sir Henry’s father therefore learned to settle down to being good fun at Court, but avoided going too far. He was also a wise advisor to Henry VIII and his son, Edward VI, but always knew his place and never became too prominent. During the Catholic Queen Mary’s reign, he decided discretion was indeed the better part of valour, and so went to live abroad until the religious climate of England changed. These lessons in discretion and survival were not lost on his son, the younger Henry Neville. Indeed, the need to keep his head down was doubly important to our Sir Henry, because his mother bore him at Blackfriars (right by the Office of the Revels), not on the family estate in Berkshire, because his parents were not formally married at the time. Secrecy therefore became part and parcel of the young Henry Neville’s existence.

Then, in 1583, Henry inherited an ordnance works from his great uncle, Sir Thomas Gresham, which further necessitated the young Neville’s need to remain unnoticed. This was because the ordnance business had restrictions placed on it by order of Her Majesty which meant that, unless he did so secretly, Neville could not export all the ordnance he wished. Without secret exportations, it is probable that no ordnance manufacturer would have been able to earn enough to keep his ironworks thriving. Metal production, after all, relied heavily on raw materials and manpower.

Neville’s Extra Secret

But Neville finally sold his ordnance works in favour of pursuing a career in politics. He must have felt secure enough to do this - as time went by, old dynastic quarrels appeared to have been almost forgotten and mainly forgiven. And there is no doubt that Queen Elizabeth I liked our Sir Henry’s father. She visited him often. Not only did he devise Court entertainments, including hilarious comic sketches, he also taught her and her ladies to hunt in the Forest of Windsor, of which he was a keeper. Moreover, Elizabeth Gresham appears to have become accepted as Sir Henry Senior’s wife, even though a ‘marriage settlement’ was only announced in 1568 - at least four years after Sir Henry’s birth. Then the young Henry’s mother died, and his father was legally married to a formidable and respected lady - Elizabeth Bacon-Doyly, half sister of Sir Francis Bacon. But she bore no children, so no one seems to have questioned either the younger Sir Henry’s legitimacy, or his right to the inheritance of Billingbear, the family home. Moreover, our Sir Henry actually chose to become a keen, ambitious politician, so it is now difficult to explain his continuing wish to avoid the limelight. Indeed, one can perhaps offer only two possible explanations: either Neville had been so inculcated - from early childhood - with a concept of the various reasons for his remaining secretive that it had become a habit with him, or else he had a greater secret to hide than most people knew about. From a psychological point of view, one can probably reject the thought that Sir Henry was simply stuck with a permanent habit of secrecy. After all, he had chosen a career where he needed to be noticed, if he hoped to gain promotion. One is forced to conclude, therefore, that another, very restrictive secret kept him from pursuing his political ambition by every means available. His letters and dispatches demonstrate that he was a gifted and inventive writer. He was indeed chosen by other writers to peruse their works. Eventually, he even advised a monarch on his writing. Neville therefore possessed all the gifts of nature and nurture to be able to write political and philosophical tracts, which would certainly have helped his career. Yet he did not do so. Why not?

I maintain, from all the evidence, that the factor which prevented Sir Henry from using his writing skills to gain the speedy political support and recognition was that he was already writing in another capacity. He was secretly writing for the public stage and so feared that his style - and any political opinions he were to express in philosophical works - might be recognised as being present in his plays and poetry. Practical evidence for Neville’s identity behind Shakespeare is presented in The Truth Will Out, and I add to it in my new book, currently undergoing final revision. Importantly too in this second book, I also examine Neville’s extant language usage (as shown in his numerous letters and dispatches) alongside that of ‘Shakespeare’. Neville wrote to his personal contacts, and many of them probably knew his secret; but if he had written tracts - under his own name - for all and sundry to read, then his enemies might well have identified him as Shakespeare, and thus seen him ousted from all public offices.

Finding Sir Henry: the Importance of Primary Source Material

As I stressed in my Preface to The Truth Will Out, I was forced to go to primary sources to discover real details about Sir Henry Neville. Everyone at Court and in Parliament knew him, but so powerful were his family and friends that if he personally gave out signals - as he did - that he wished to remain a very private person, then few would have dared to contradict these wishes. Yet, in public life, he was a sufficiently prominent and respected politician to gather around him the main popular and aristocratic support in his bid to become Secretary of State after the death of his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil. People therefore knew of Sir Henry’s public face and his great abilities, but he was so far-sighted in his ideas, so unpredictable in action, and possessed such a wealth of knowledge that he also became somewhat unfathomable as far as chroniclers of the time were concerned. They were thus content to do as he wished and leave him somewhat unrecorded, in the formal sense.

Add to all this Neville’s sometimes errant behaviour, and it becomes clear that official chroniclers would have been positively encouraged to ignore him. After all, even his literary and political friends could hardly have written of Neville without mentioning his support of the Earl of Essex, which would have damaged his further career opportunities. Even if they omitted this episode, then its absence would have been noted and commented upon, so famous (or infamous) had he and his friend, the Earl of Southampton, become through this association. So the best thing even his friends could do to further his political career was to continue to speak of him in awe and respect, but to make sure he did not become the absolute centre of attention. Had anyone written tracts lauding his abilities, then Neville’s former political misdeeds would have been raked up again and subjected to public analysis.

These tactics seemed to be working. When Cecil died, Neville was, (as A.L. Rowse says) ‘clearly the best man for the job’ of State Secretary, and only one man - a jealous, fearful, yet all-too-autocratic King James I - prevented Neville’s promotion. Thirteen years earlier, Neville must already have been a powerful figure too, because the Earl of Essex had named Sir Henry as his ‘First Minister’ should his Rebellion succeed. But that Rebellion failed, so Neville’s earlier wish to stay away from publicity was necessarily re-inforced. Had the Rebellion succeeded, things would probably have been very different indeed, regarding Sir Henry’s chronicled fame. Perhaps he and others may even have openly declared his true authorship of Shakespeare’s works. But such circumstances never arose. Neville consequently suffered continuous disappointment, as far as his political ambitions were concerned. Despite, or perhaps because of, his consumate gifts, he was never trusted by monarchs, and so always missed the high political offices to which he aspired and for which he was widely recognised as being eminenty eligible.

The Problems with Secondary Sources

Thus are some of the cultural/historical reasons behind the inevitable shortcomings of some secondary sources plainly observed, when one examines Sir Henry’s case. He has been both under-represented and misunderstood - mainly because of his non-conformity with the dictates of the age. The Earl of Essex too has suffered from misrepresentation on the part of official chroniclers - the spin-doctors of the day. Received opinion portrays Essex as a stupid, headstrong boy who, whimsically, variously loved or opposed Queen Elizabeth I. However, if one views the tangible evidence, and the primary sources, one has to paint a very different picture. The Earl spent much of his wealth endowing the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was a great scholar, and respected as such by his peers. He possessed enough intelligence and charisma to gather a following among university dons, local and national politicians, statesmen and the ‘people’. Following his father’s terrible record of cruelty in Ireland, he became a humanitarian who could not bear to oppress the poor people over there once he witnessed their plight. He clearly felt a need to atone for his father’s sins. Even the King of Spain noted with surprise that, following Essex’s raid on Cadiz harbour in 1596, that Earl had done everything he could to prevent his troops harming the Civilian population. Indeed, on Essex’s return from this exploit, Queen Elizabeth I castigated him for not having plundered more booty and brought it home to her!

There was thus far more to the Earl of Essex than English pro-monarchical chroniclers of the time recorded. Yet many historians have been content, ever since, to follow those necessarily prejudiced chroniclers rather than looking at the objective evidence and the primary sources. Even Essex’s outrageous behaviour at his trial can be seen as a conscious attempt to divert the court’s attention from his followers, thus allowing the judges to concentrate on the Earl’s madness, and so - hopefully - arrive at the conclusion that Essex himself was solely to blame for what happened. “Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.” Hamlet-like, Essex may well have feigned his damaged state of mind. (As for Neville’s role - never before discussed - in the tangible, practical reasons behind the haste and untimeliness with which the Earl of Essex and his followers pursued the abortive rebellion, please see my Appendix on this subject in The Truth Will Out).

Sir Henry Neville’s Powerful Presence

The Nevilles were extremely powerful, and remain an important family,even though the general public does not hear much of them, and even though they still remain largely unsung in secondary sources. As I have written in my book centring on the Code contained in the Dedication to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, (which will also contain further aspects of Sir Henry’s authorship of the Shakespeare plays), even the bravest of Neville’s contemporaries was averse to mentioning him too directly. I have discovered a document in which he is covertly referred to as a ‘Flame’, and a ‘Furnace’. This is, of course, jokingly exaggerated, but nevertheless Neville probably presented quite a fearful presence. He was of large build, over six feet tall, carried a sword and had red hair and the most piercing eyes. Moreover, he knew how to construct weapons, including guns and cannons (hence the reference to the Furnace.) By his own confession to his friend Winwood, ‘patience’ was not something that came easily to him. Certainly, he must have been a commanding figure in Parliament as the ‘Undertaker’ story (below) witnesses.

An ‘Undertaker’ during King James I’s time was the term used for some politicians who secretly ‘undertook’ to manage Parliament for the King, providing (basically) the King would agree to consult them and not attempt to reign autocratically. Such hostility had grown between Parliament and the King that Parliament began to meet in secret. This led to a few far-sighted politicians - who perceived the inherrent dangers from such antagonism - getting together and sending secret reports of the Parliamentary proceedings to the King. Parliament inevitably began to receive intelligence of this, and to hear that the ‘Undertakers’ had a leader, so a huge and accusatorial debate began during an otherwise formal Parliamentary session. There was actual physical fighting on the floor of the House until Neville stood up and shouted ‘I am the Undertaker’.

Had almost any other M.P. interjected this startling news, he would have been verbally attacked by his fellows, at very least. But because this was Neville, the whole company fell to an immediate silence. They listened quietly to what Neville had to say about the nature of political-monarchical conflict and its dangers, and his reasons for acting as he had done. Eventually, it was announced that ‘with his reasons Parliament could find no fault’. Neville had, single-handedly, pacified them. As his grandson in his book Plato Redivivus was later to say, there was every chance that, had Neville’s recommendations been followed, then the Civil War may have been avoided and much bloodshed spared.

Some Unofficial Chroniclers of the real Neville

Neville wished to remain hidden and largely succeeded in doing so. In my Appendix (in The Truth Will Out ) on Neville and the Founding Fathers of America, I note that a researcher called Charles Mills Gayley returned to primary sources and found mention of Neville at the Mitre Club (which was the philosophical and literary club of the time, whereas the Mermaid was the one frequented by actors, playwrights and those who did not mind their names being openly associated with the stage.) In the Mitre Club - at whose dinners Neville spoke alongside John Donne - Neville was indeed a prominent personage, but still one who did not like to be written about. As witness to this, Neville’s friend Dudley Carleton wrote a letter to John Chamberlain - their mutual associate - expressing wonder that a certain poet in that club had dared to mention the names of ‘great folk amongst those great fools, and I marvel how Jonson was missing amongst the good fellows.’(p.121, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain 1603 - 1624 , edited by Maurice Lee.) [Carleton expressed surprise that Ben Jonson was missing, because Ben was a member of the Mitre Club too. Jonson knew Neville through this and other connections, yet he only once wrote of him openly, in an Epigram (see the Neville Collection)]. Jonson’s Epigram praised Neville’s political incorruptibility, and any continuation of such laudatory works may indeed have helped Neville’s political career, so one can only conclude that Neville had secret reason for preventing his friend from writing any more.

The brave Mitre poet to whom Carleton referred was John Hoskyns. He had written a poem entitled ‘Convivium Philosophicum’ about a gathering of literati and wits at the Mitre. In another book of his, Beaumont the Dramatist, Gayley prints a contemporary translation of some of Hoskyns’ verse:

Whosoever is contented

That a number be convented,

Enough but not too many;

The Miter is the place decreed,

For witty jests and cleanly feed,

The betterest of any...

Sir Robert Horse-lover the while,

Ne let Sir Henry count it vile

Will come with gentle speed

And Rabbit-tree-where-acorn-grows

And John, surnamed Little-hose

Will come if there be need, (etc. etc.)

Even on the scaffold, one of the Earl of Essex’s closest followers - Cuffe, the Latin scholar - made a speech declaiming that he was truly sorry if he brought any trouble to ‘That noble Knight, Sir Henry Neville’. Neville was indeed a man greatly respected and not a little feared - probably not in the physical sense, but through knowledge of his huge intellect. Even when he was only 19 years old, he was referred to (in Latin) by Richard Edes, a contemporary poet, as ‘book-learned’. And when a correspondent of Winwood visited the continent and saw Neville partaking in a procession in Belgium, he explained that he would have liked to have greeted him, but did not do so, since one must have something well-prepared to ‘approach a man of his quality.’ Such a man inevitably made enemies too, and some of them conspired to keep him out of power in politics and Court. They even, possibly, managed to harm his family (as revealed in my next book on Sir Henry.)

By creating this aura of respectful, and/or disparaging, distancing around him, however, Neville was able to write in secret. As a reader of my research said, when one sees Neville’s letters and dispatches, and knows of his towering intelligence, it is highly improbable that Neville would never have written anything at all of lasting interest. Neville never published anything under his own name, but to imagine that he therefore never wrote anything at all is just as strange a notion (for a man of his background and abilities), as is the one that Shakespeare, the unlearned, could have written the works attributed to him. However, only by using his intellectual and hereditary powers to ensure that no one would ever have his approval to write openly about him was Neville able to maintain his secret writing, and also to remain a politician. Even in latter days, Edward Heath said that anyone openly involved in the Arts was automatically suspect when it came to politics. He therefore relinquished his orchestral conducting: it is impossible to conduct and not be noticed! However, with careful management, it was perfectly possible for Neville to write for the stage, yet not be identified. He could then keep both careers happily feeding each other - so long as he kept his writing secret. It is precisely because of Neville’s skills in this direction that I have had to travel far and wide to find original, unpublished letters and, sometimes, erstwhile-unattributed documents in various Record Offices up and down the country. Neville remained a mystery man who combined erudition with the ability to be ‘a wanton snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’. Francis Bacon labelled him ‘an impossible dreamer’, but these are all qualities surely needed by playwrights. Thus it came about that most contemporaries found Neville ultimately unfathomable. His grandson, by the way, was also known to his friends as a ‘concealed poet’ during his lifetime, which certainly bears out my assertion that the Nevilles have continuously shunned publicity regarding their authorship.

Neville and Superman!

Charles Mills Gayley and, later, Sir Frank Kermode, have remarked that ‘Shakespeare’ must have known and been influenced by Sir Henry Neville! Yet there is never any recorded instance of Shakespeare being at the same place as Neville or having known him. Wherever we expect to find Shakespeare, however, - from Venice, to Vienna, from Denmark to the sea, at the Mitre Club, or generally within the circle of the learned - we find Neville instead! Neville’s experience and Neville’s knowledge are reflected in Shakespeare’s plays, not the improbable William’s. To draw a popular parallel, it is as if Gayley, Kermode and others are witnessing something akin to Clark Kent and Superman, with Henry Neville cast as both Shakespeare and himself, but with his known self being only a minute portion of the true man. Indeed, Ben Jonson said of Neville that he had a ‘lent life’ and strove to be ‘...the same in root thou art in height’ which of course means that half of his achievements and personality lay buried.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Notes on Sir Henry Neville, © M. Greengrass, 2004 -2007. from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press

Beaumont, The Dramatist, a Portrait, by Charles Mills Gayley, New York, 1914

Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in Ameirca by Charles Mills Gayley, New York, 1917

Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603 - 1624: Jacobean Letters, edited by Maurice Lee, Jr., New Jersey, 1972

Shakespeare’s Southampton, Patron of Virginia, by A.L. Rowse, London, 1965

MONTAGU HOUSE PAPERS {HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS COMMISSION }1899 edition Report on the Manuscipts of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, preserved at Montagu House, Whitehall, vol.1 [Eyre and Spottiswoode Her Majesty's Stationery Office.]

The Spanish Armadas, Winston Graham, (Doubleday, 1972)

©Brenda James SIR HENRY NEVILLE - THE HIDDEN PERSUADER 22/03/2007