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Volume  1
  TOGA NEWS 
Issue 3, December, 2001
 
Continued from Page 4

This priest took the lads to the Kings of France and Spain, who refused to receive them, fearing trouble with England. Then he carried them to the "Pope in Rome, "and the Holy Father insisted upon the Kings of France and Spain each taking one of the boys to educate and bring them up at their courts." 
This was done. The boys dropped the "0" from their names, the one in France further changing the spelling of his to Neil, he being the ancestor of the celebrated
Marechal Neil, for whom the famed rose was called. The one in Spain changed his name to Neale. He married one of the ladies of the Court. 
His son (says Semmes) became Admiral Neale of the Spanish navy, and. in this capacity and in command of Spain's war vessels, he accompanied her merchantmen
between Spain's American possessions and Spain, laden with qold and precious stones, to prevent England from capturing them. 
The Admiral O'Neal (he means Neale), during one of his visits across the ocean, came to the Colony of Maryland, and was delighted with Lord Baltimore and with his Catholic Colony of Maryland, where religious liberty was allowed. He decided to return to Maryland, which he did during, the time of the second Lord Baltimore, bringing his family and locating in St. Mary's or Charles County. His wife was Spanish and so was his mother. 
He was the ancestor or the Neales of Maryland, among whom was the Second Archbishop of Baltimore, Leonard Neale, who established the Visitation Convent in
Georgetown, D.C. and the Carmelite Convent in Baltimore, and assisted in the establishment of Georgetown College. 
Semmes was in error about the wife of Shane's grandson, and also about the consort of King Charles I. The former was an English woman, Anne Gill, whom Captain Neale married in Maryland; and the latter was a French woman. The Rev. Pye Neale was also in error in saying that Captain James Neale was on the scaffold when Charles I was beheaded, for not one of the histories of England and none of the biographies of the King mention his name. The very latest and probably the most authoritative biography of Charles states that "upon the scaffold, besides the executioner and his assistant, there stood only the soldiers of the guard, the Bishop of London, and the  King himself. " Falous in uno falous in omnes. 
Maryland was settled in March 1634. Five years later Captain James Neale arrived in the Province, "and although a young man, was at once appointed to posts of trust and importance. Within a year after his coming, he was made a 'member of his Lordship's Council and Commissioner of the Treasury. 

 After remaining in the Province long enough to win the charming Anne Gill for his wife, he sailed for England with his bride." 
The same historian says that "during their absence abroad Captain James Neale and his wife resided mostly in Spain, where he was employed in some diplomatic service for the King and the Duke of York." 
There is a tradition in the Neale family that Captain Neale and his wife spent some time in England, where Mrs. Neale was "a maid of honor to Oueen Henrietta Maria for whom she named her first daughter, and that when this daughter was christened, the Queen acted as her godmother. 
It must have been after the execution of the King, that Captain Neale took his family to Spain, where, being Catholic in religion and because of his connection with the Court, they could find a more hospitable home than in England, where Catholics were then being persecuted. 
The date of Captain Neale's return to Maryland is unre-corded, but in 1660 he was chosen "to represent Lord Baltimore at Amsterdam in a protest against the seating of the Dutch on the Delaware River and Bay," and "at the close of his mission he returned to Maryland when he was commissioned Captain by the Proprietary to raise troops against the Dutch, and also appointed a member of his Lordship's Council. He was that same year comissioned Deputy Governor with others, if Governor Philip Calvert should die." 
As a merchant in Spain, Neale accumulated wealth, and on his return to the Province of Maryland he purchased large holdings adjoining his great estate of Wolleston
Manor. In I666 he presented a petition to the Council "for the naturalization of his four children - Henrietta Maria, James, Dorothy and Anthony - born in Spain during his residence there as a merchant, and employed by the King of England and by the Duke of York in several emergent matters as by his commission herewith produced might appear." 
Captain Neale died in 1684. He had founded, at Wolleston Manor, one of the great families in Maryland and in Virginia. His sons and daughters all married into
distinguished families, and became the progenitors of families that made history. Henrietta Maria Neale, twice married, was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Maryland. She left children in Virginia and in Maryland who married into representative families. In the records of her day, she is "designated as 'Madam Lloyd,'  a mark of the highest social distinction in the Colonial period."