Hugh de Neville

Hugh de Neville The historian Daniel Crook suggests that this shows that Joan Neville was one of the barons' wives who attracted King John's sexual attentions. Joan's lands also brought him into conflict with Falkes de Bréauté, the husband of Joan's younger sister and co-heiress, and the two brothers-in-law were involved in lawsuits over their wives' lands for more than five years. Joan and her sister were also co-heiresses to the barony of Courcy, in right of their mother Alice de Courcy. although his death was incorrectly recorded by Matthew Paris as occurring in 1222. (This error led some earlier historians to postulate two different Hugh de Nevilles—the forester and a son also named Hugh.) This disproved theory then had the elder Hugh dying in 1222 and the invented son dying in 1234. The historian Sidney Painter said of Neville's career during John's reign that "a strong argument could be advanced for the thesis that the royal official who wielded the most actual power during John's reign was the chief forester, Hugh de Neville". Another historian, J. R. Maddicott, states that Neville was head of "one of the most detested branches of royal administration".