1904.] on Westminster Abbey in the Seventeenth Century. 521 



' Then, Sir, I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neile's 

 money, for he offers it.' 



Richard Neile was a Westminster boy, when the famous William 

 Camden was our second master. His father was a tallow-chandler in 

 King Street. Dean Goodman saw the lad's abilities, and sent him to 

 Cambridge in 1580. An unknown benefactor (it was the Lady Mil- 

 dred, Lord Burleigh's learned wife) had just given scholarships to 

 St. John's College, the holders of which were to be called Dr. Good- 

 man's scholars. But for this bounty, says Neile, ' I thinke I shoulde 

 never have bin sent to the Universitie, but that the best of my Fortune 

 would have bin to have become some Bookesellers apprentice in Panics 

 Churcheyard : To which Trade of life Mr. Grante then Schoolemastc^r 

 here persuaded my Mother to have disposed of mee.' His gratitude, 

 when he returned to live here as Dean, was expressed by his sending 

 up two or three boys to the University every year. 



He made an admirable Dean, busy and business-like, putting the 

 college estates and accounts into order, repairing Henry VII. 's Chapel, 

 even mending the wax effigies of the kings. He must have kept more 

 state than his predecessors, for he found his house too small, and 

 built a quaint little chamber on the top of the long wooden gallery. 

 He also built ' for the Deanes use a large Stable sufficient to receave 

 14 or 16 Geldings,' which with the coachhouse and other rooms cost 

 the immense sum, for those days, of lOOZ. But though he spent boldly 

 in every direction his good management largely increased our 

 revenues, which not long before had been exceedingly scanty. He 

 made William Neile, his elder brother, a kind of factotum, giving him 

 various lay posts in the college. Their father Paul had died six 

 years before Richard went up to Cambridge, and Sibill, their mother, 

 after less than a twelvemonth became Mrs. Newell. Her son Robert 

 Newell was presented to the Abbey living of Islip in 1609, and he 

 became a Prebendary in 1620. So the good Dean, like all others of 

 his time, ' provided for his own.' He arranged moreover that his 

 mother should lie in the great north porch : and at his very last 

 Chapter meeting he secured a remarkable testimonial for himself and 

 his wife in the shape of a grant of a small pew behind the pulpit for 

 Mrs. Neile's use when she might happen to be in Westminster, and a 

 key for himself to the seat where the lessons were read in the choir. 

 He was evidently reluctant to sever his connection with the great 

 church which he had served so well ; and it is interesting to find him 

 back again two years after he had ceased to be Dean, with a special 

 mandate from the King for the removal to the Abbey of the body of 

 Mary Queen of Scots. 



He was with us five years, in the last two of which he was Bishop 

 of Rochester as well. He then left us to climb the ladder of pre- 

 ferment as Bishop successively of Lichfield, of Lincoln, of Durham, of 

 Winchester ; dying at seventy-eight as Archbishop of York, just a 

 couple of days before the Long Parliament met, and the deluge began. 

 He was a good churchman, and we shall hear of him again, for he 



