Background
He was son of a tallow-chandler, though his grandfather had been a courtier and official under Henry VIII, until he was deprived for non-compliance with the Six Articles.
He was son of a tallow-chandler, though his grandfather had been a courtier and official under Henry VIII, until he was deprived for non-compliance with the Six Articles.
He was educated at Westminster School, under Edward Grant and William Camden.
He was involved in the last burning at the stake for heresy in England, that of the Arian Edward Wightman in 1612. He took the degree of doctor in divinity in 1600. He preached before Queen Elizabeth, and became vicar of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire (resigned in 1609), and on 5 November 1605 he was installed Dean of Westminster.
He resigned the deanery in 1610.
He held successively the bishoprics of Rochester (1608), Lichfield and Coventry (1610), Lincoln (1614), Durham (1617), and Winchester (1628), and the archbishopric of York (1631). While at Rochester he appointed William Laud as his chaplain and gave him several valuable preferments.
His political activity while bishop of Durham was rewarded with a privy councillorship in 1627. Neile sat regularly in the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission.
His correspondence with Laud and with Sir Dudley Carleton and Sir Francis Windebank (Charles I"s secretaries of state) are valuable sources for the history of the time.
Oliver Cromwell made only one speech during his first stint as a Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628–1629, a poorly received attack against Neile, possibly over disagreement with his form of Arminianism.
