Hugh de Neville[a] (died 1234) was the Chief Forester under the kings Richard I, John and Henry III of England; he was the sheriff for a number of counties.

Related to a number of other royal officials as well as a bishop, Neville was a member of Prince Richard's household.

[10] Neville's account of events was a source for the chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall's entries on Richard's activities in the Third Crusade.

[13] As the official in charge of the royal forests, he held one of the four great offices of the state: the others were the justiciar, the chancellor, and the treasurer.

[17] Forest law was resented by the king's subjects, not just for its severity but also because of the large extent of the kingdom that it encompassed.

This extent enabled the Norman and Angevin kings to use the harsh punishments of forest law to extract large sums of money for their government.

Neville's large fine was probably a warning that the king was serious about enforcing the forest law; it was eventually rescinded.

[19] In 1213 Neville was placed in charge of the seaports along the southwest English coast from Cornwall to Hampshire,[22] but some time in 1213 it appears that he fell from royal favour, although the circumstances are unknown.

[23] He was present at Runnymede for the signing of Magna Carta and was mentioned in the preamble as one of King John's councillors,[4] as well as serving as a witness to the document.

[9] Roger of Wendover, a chronicler writing in 1211, listed Neville as one of King John's "evil counsellors".

[24] Initially, a faction of the barons forced John to agree to Magna Carta to secure less capricious government from the king.

When John heard of the change of sides, he confiscated all of Neville's lands held directly from the king on 8 July 1216.

The historian C. R. Young states that he held the office until his death in 1234 when it passed to his son John,[27] but Daniel Crook, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, claims that Neville lost the forester office in 1229, to be replaced by John of Monmouth and Brian de Lisle.

[1][e] The historian Daniel Crook suggests that this shows that Joan Neville was one of the barons' wives who attracted King John's sexual attentions.

Some time before April 1230 he married secondly Beatrice, the widow of Ralph de Fay and one of the five daughters of Stephen of Turnham.