Alexander Neville (scholar)

Alexander Neville (1544–1614) was an English scholar, known as a historian and translator and a Member of the House of Commons.

Alexander Neville was the brother of Thomas Neville, Dean of Canterbury, and son of Richard Neville of South Leverton, Nottinghamshire, by Anne Mantell, daughter of Sir Walter Mantell (d.1529) of Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire. His mother's sister, Margaret Mantell, was the mother of the poet Barnabe Googe.

Alexander was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1581, at the same time as Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. On leaving the university he seems to have studied law in London, where he became acquainted with George Gascoigne. He is one of the five friends whom Gascoigne describes as challenging him to write poems on Latin mottoes proposed by themselves. Neville soon entered the service of Archbishop Matthew Parker apparently as a secretary, and edited for him Tabula Heptarchiae Saxonicae.

He attended Parker's funeral on 6 June 1575, and wrote an elegy in Latin heroics. He remained in the service of Parker's successors, Edmund Grindal and John Whitgift. Possibly he is identical with the Alexander Neville who sat in parliament as M.P. for Christchurch, Hampshire, in 1585, and for Saltash in 1601. He died on 4 October 1614, and was buried on 9 October in Canterbury Cathedral, where the dean erected a monument to commemorate both his brother and himself. He married Jane, daughter of Richard Duncombe of Morton, Buckinghamshire, and widow of Sir Gilbert Dethick, but left no issue.

Nevill was a Member of Parliament, representing Christchurch in the Parliament of 1585, for Peterborough in 1597 and Saltash in that of 1601. But he appears to have been inactive.

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