Sir William Neville (c. 1341 – 19 October 1391) was an English

Lollard Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that existed from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholic ...

knight, and constable of

Nottingham castle Nottingham Castle is a Stuart Restoration-era ducal mansion in Nottingham, England, built on the site of a Norman castle built starting in 1068, and added to extensively through the medieval period, when it was an important royal fortress and o ...

. He was a crusader with his Lollard brother,

John Clanvowe Sir John Clanvowe (c. 1341 – 17 October 1391) was a Welsh diplomat, poet and chamber knight to Richard II. He was born to a Marcher family and was possibly of mixed Anglo-Welsh origin, holding lands that would lie in the present-day Radnorshi ...

, with whom he was buried inside the

Arap Mosque Arap Mosque ( tr, Arap Camii, literally ''Arab Mosque'') is a mosque in the Karaköy quarter of Istanbul, Turkey. The building was originally a Roman Catholic church erected in 1325 by the friars of the Dominican Order, near or above an earlier cha ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Biography

Sir William Neville was a knight of the chamber to King

Richard II of England Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father die ...

and was named constable of Nottingham castle. He was son of Ralph Neville, 2nd Baron Neville.

Robin Hood legend

Nottingham historian Tony Scupham-Bilton has suggested that there is a gay undertone to the Robin Hood legend. The link with Robin Hood dates back 700 years and it is due to the relationship between Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe. The two shared a special bond, despite the fact Sir William had a wife, firstly Elizabeth Le Waleys and secondly Alice de St. Philbert. Clanvowe, a poet, wrote a ballad in honor of a visit of King Richard II to Nottingham castle, "The Jest of Robin Hood". According to Scupham-Bilton, the background of the ballad was Clanvowe's own relationship with Neville. The two of them had a ceremony of "wedded brotherhood". Neville and Clanvowe died on pilgrimage near Constantinople, Neville two days later than Clanvowe. In an entry for 1391 in the chronicle compiled in the XIV century by the monks of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

, it is written that William Neville died of grief for the death of John Clanvowe: "It was also on October 17, that in a village near Constantinople in Greece the life of Sir John Clanvowe, a distinguished knight, came to its close, causing to his companion on the march, Sir William Neville, for whom his love was no less than for himself, such inconsolable sorrow that he never took food again and two days afterward breathed his last, greatly mourned, in the same village. These two knights were men of high repute among the English, gentlemen of mettle and descended from illustrious families." Their tombstone was sculpted with two helms kissing each others, and was discovered in 1913 inside the

. It is now preserved at the

İstanbul Archaeology Museums The Istanbul Archaeology Museums ( tr, ) are a group of three archaeological museums located in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, near Gülhane Park and Topkapı Palace. The Istanbul Archaeology Museums consists of three museums: #Arch ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neville, William (Lollard knight) 14th-century births 1391 deaths Neville, William (knight) Neville, William (Lollard) William (Lollard knight) Younger sons of barons