Education
He graduated Bachelor of Arts 16 May 1542, Master of Arts
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Thomas Neal
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On 19 June 1538 he was chosen probationer of New College, and in 1540 admitted perpetual fellowship 11 July 1546, and was admitted Bachelor of Divinity 23 July 1556. Before he took orders, Neal had acquired a reputation as a Greek and Hebrew scholar and theologian, and was given a pension by Sir Thomas Whyte.
He travelled in France, probably during the time of the Edwardian reformation.
And appears to have been there in 1556. Soon after the beginning of Mary I"s reign he had been made chaplain to Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, and appointed rector of Thenford in Northamptonshire.
On the accession of Elizabeth I, Neal went to Oxford, and in 1559 was made Regius Professor of Hebrew. He entered himself as a commoner of Hart Hall, and built lodgings for himself at the west end of New College, and opposite to Hart Hall.
He took a prominent part in the entertainment of Elizabeth at Oxford in 1566, and wrote an account of it, published in Anthony Wood"s History and Antiquities of Oxford, and used as the source for Richard Stephens"s Brief Rehearsal.
The statements that Bonner sent him to Bishop Anthony Kitchin to dissuade him from assisting in the consecration of Parker, and that he was present at the pretended ceremony at the Nag"s Head, rest on assertions of John Pits.
