NEALE, Francis, of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, London and East Meon, Hants.

Neale’s grandfather, father and elder brother Thomas were all auditors of the Exchequer, and the family must have been well known to Lord Burghley, who twice brought Neale into Parliament for Grantham. In 1590 he or a namesake received a small grant of land in Cambridgeshire. During his first Parliament he was arrested for debt at the suit of a brewer. He paid up and was released, but, ‘in regard of the preservation of the liberties and privileges’ of the Commons, he brought the matter before the House on 5 Apr. 1593. The arresting officer and the brewer were summoned before the House next day and put in the Tower. Neale probably retired from his Exchequer post to his Hampshire estates about 1625. The date of his death has not been ascertained.Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 149; Misc. Gen. et Her. (ser. 2), v. 297; Coll. Top. et Gen. iv. 124; v. 372; Hants Mar. Lic. 1607-40, p. 53; APC, xxiv. 46; HMC Hatfield, vii. 22; xi. 340; Vis. Leics. (Harl. Soc. ii), 46; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 676; 1625-6, p. 536; 1627-8, p. 440; Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 2, p. 15; D’Ewes, 518, 519.