[1] Before he took orders, Neal had acquired a reputation as a Greek and Hebrew scholar and theologian, and was given a pension by Sir Thomas Whyte.
Soon after the beginning of Mary I's reign he had been made chaplain to Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, and appointed rector of Thenford in Northamptonshire.
[1] On the accession of Elizabeth I, Neal went to Oxford, and in 1559 was made Regius Professor of Hebrew.
[1] Neal has been taken as the ultimate authority for the Nag's Head Story, told against Matthew Parker by Catholic opponents of the Church of England, as related by William Arthur Shaw in the Dictionary of National Biography.
The statements that Bonner sent him to Bishop Anthony Kitchin to dissuade him from assisting in the consecration of Parker, and that he was present at the pretended ceremony at the Nag's Head, rest on assertions of John Pits.