"[1] He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and was from his childhood destined for the clerical profession, in which through the great influence of his family he obtained rapid advancement, becoming Bishop of Exeter in 1458.

He was present with his brother Warwick at the Battle of Northampton in July 1460, immediately after which the Great Seal was committed to his keeping.

[3][5] In 1463 he was employed on a diplomatic mission in France;[6] and in 1464, after taking part in negotiation with the Scots, Neville, after collation as Archdeacon of Carlisle circa 1463[citation needed] became Archbishop of York on 15 March 1465.

They consumed 4000 pigeons and 4000 crays, 2000 chickens, 204 cranes, 104 peacocks, 1200 quails, 400 swans and 400 herons, 113 oxen, six wild bulls, 608 pikes and bream, 12 porpoises and seals, 1000 sheep, 304 calves, 2000 pigs, 1000 capons, 400 plovers, 2400 of a bird called 'rees' (i.e. ruffs), 4000 mallard and teals, 204 kids and 204 bitterns, 200 pheasants, 500 partridges, 400 woodcocks, 100 curlews, 1000 egrets, over 500 stags, bucks and roes, 4000 cold and 1500 hot venison pies, 4000 dishes of jelly, 4000 baked tarts, 2000 hot custards with a proportionate quantity of bread, sugared delicacies and cakes, and 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine.

[10] In 1469, after a successful rising in Yorkshire secretly fomented by Warwick, the king fell into the hands of the archbishop, by whom, after a short imprisonment, he was permitted to escape.