Nicholas (I) Drugeth de Gerény (also Druget, Hungarian: gerényi Druget (I.) Miklós, Slovak: Mikuláš I. Druget Horiansky; 1300s – May or June 1355) was a Neapolitan-born Hungarian baron and military leader in the first half of the 14th century. As a member of the prestigious Drugeth family, he arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary along with his father and brothers upon the invitation of King Charles I at the turn of 1327 and 1328. Nicholas entered the service of the royal court as one of the tutors of princes Louis and Andrew. In this capacity, he protected boldly the children during Felician Záh's unsuccessful assassination attempt in 1330. Thereafter, Nicholas served as Master of the cupbearers.

Following the death of his older brother William without male heirs, Nicholas would have inherited his large wealth and power in Northeast Hungary in 1342, but as a result of court intrigues, the newly enthroned Louis I confiscated most of the inheritance. Nicholas and his younger brother John II were able to retain landholdings only in the mostly uninhabited, northeasternmost part of the kingdom, in Ung and Zemplén counties. Nevertheless, although politically marginalized, Nicholas did not lose his favor at the royal court. He participated in Louis' second Neapolitan campaign, becoming captain of the occupied Salerno in 1350. Returning Hungary, he was installed as Judge royal in 1354, but died in the next year. The Gerény branch of the Drugeth family descended from him, but this branch became extinct after two generations by the end of the 14th century. The Homonna branch, as the only surviving cadet branch descended from his younger brother.

Although in these times the people of Hungary enjoyed the loved tranquility of peace and the kingdom was on all sides secure against its enemies, yet the hater of peace and the sower of envy, the devil, put into the heart of a certain soldier named Felicianus, of the line of Zaah, who was already advanced in years and his hair silvered, that he would in one day kill with his sword his lord King Charles and Queen Elizabeth, and the King's two sons Lays and Andreas. [...] In the year of our Lord 1330, on April 17, the Wednesday [sic] after the octave of Easter, the King was at dinner with the Queen and his sons in his residence before the castle of Vyssegrad, when Felicianus secretly entered and stood before the King's table. He drew his sharp sword from its scabbard and like a mad dog threw himself upon the King, the Queen and the sons in pitiless desire to kill them. But the pity of a pitiful God prevented him from executing his intent. Yet he slightly wounded the King in the right hand. But, alas, from the right hand of the most saintly Queen he severed four fingers which in her almsgiving she was wont to extend in pity to the poor, the wretched and the downcast. [...] Then he [Felicianus] tried to kill the royal princes who were present, but their tutors, Gyula de Kenesich's son [Nicholas Tapolcsányi] and Nicolaus, son of the Count Palatine Johannes [Nicholas Drugeth], placed themselves in his way and received mortal wounds in the head, but the boys were unhurt. Then Johannes, son of Alexander from the county of Potok [John Cselenfi], a youth of good disposition who was the Queen's second cup-bearer, threw himself upon Felicianus as upon a wild beast and struck at him with a dagger [bicellus] between the neck and the shoulder with such force that he felled him to the ground. Then from this side and that the King's soldiers rushed in and dispatched him as if he were some monster, severing the wretch's limbs with their terrible swords. [...]

— The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle

Nicholas was born in the 1300s as the second son of John I Drugeth and Pasqua de Bononensi. The Drugeth family belonged to those Neapolitan elite of Ultramontane (French or Provençal) origin, who arrived to Apulia (Southern Italy) with Charles I of Anjou in 1266. By the first decade of the 14th century, brothers Philip and John – Nicholas' father – were considered as the most important members of the family. While John entered the service of Clementia, briefly Queen consort of France and Navarre. Philip joined the accompaniment of Clementia's brother Charles in the journey to Hungary, where laid claim to the throne and successfully acquired it by 1310. Nicholas had an elder brother William, and three much more younger siblings, John II, Philip II and Clementia. They grew up together in the queenly court of Clementia at Paris and Aix-en-Provence. Nicholas was certainly adult by 1324, when paid the papal tithes on behalf of the Saint Mary family chapel with the rank of a parish church, which located in the Drugeths' feudal estate in Pascarola.

John Drugeth and his family were invited from Naples to Hungary by King Charles I in order to inherit the wealth and power of Philip Drugeth, who lived in Hungary for decades as the king's most loyal comrade-in-arms, and by the time of his death (June or July 1327) he had risen to be one of the most influential barons. While John succeeded his brother as Palatine of Hungary, William, who was in his twenties, inherited his late uncle's wealth and large-scale province in Northeast Hungary, instantly becoming the richest and most powerful magnate in the Kingdom of Hungary. Nicholas also arrived to Hungary in 1327 or 1328. Along with Nicholas Tapolcsányi (or Knesich), Nicholas Drugeth became the tutor ("pedagogus") of the Hungarian princes Louis and Andrew, who were still small children at the time. Serbian historian Đura Hardi emphasizes, the service of engaging one of the Drugeths as tutor of their children by the Capetian House of Anjou looked back on a six-decade tradition. Both Nicholas Drugeth and Nicholas Tapolcsányi were present, when an enraged noble Felician Záh attempted to assassinate the entire royal family at dinner on 17 April 1330 in the royal palace of Visegrád. According to the narration of the near-contemporary Illuminated Chronicle, the two tutors managed to save the lives of the princes by placing themselves in Felician's way. Both Drugeth and Tapolcsányi received severe ("mortal") wounds in the head, but they both successfully recovered after the incident.

During a preparation of his military campaign to the Kingdom of Poland, the childless William Drugeth announced his last will and testament in Sáros Castle (present-day Šariš, Slovakia) on 9 August 1330, where he designated as the heir of all of his possessions his younger brother Nicholas, again under the principle of primogeniture (i.e. the youngest brother John II was excluded from the inheritance). Accordingly, Nicholas would have inherited eight castles – Szalánc (Slanec), Parics (near Trebišov), Barkó (Brekov), Jeszenő (Jasenov), Palocsa (Plaveč), Lubló (Stará Ľubovňa), Szokoly (Sokoľ) and Nedec or Dunajec (Niedzica) – with their benefits and accessories. The castles laid in the territory of the Drugeth Province in Northeast Hungary, in Szepes, Abaúj, Sáros and Zemplén counties, all but one of the castles are located in what is now Slovakia; Dunajec is located in Poland. In addition, Nicholas also became heir of some unidentified lands in Szatmár County and Újbécs ("New Vienna"), a settlement north of Pest. Micholas would inherit William's charters and documents, his entire stud, workstock, his guarantor horses and his weapons, under the conditions that he owes their sister Clementia 300 marks of fine silver from the income of the listed estates, to which he grants the customs duty of Lubló to their sister until full settlement. William also entrusted his personal servitor Walter to Nicholas that he may be accorded the same treatment as he enjoyed, and if he were to leave his service, he would be dismissed with a worthy payment.

Nicholas Drugeth was first styled as Master of the cupbearers by a contemporary charter in August 1332. Beside that, he also served as ispán of Ugocsa County from the same month. He held these offices until 1343 and 1342, respectively. Historians Ignaz Aurelius Fessler and István Miskolczy considered prince Andrew was accompanied by Nicholas to Naples in 1333–1334, where he was betrothed to his cousin Joanna, granddaughter and heiress apparent of King Robert of Naples. They argued, Nicholas, as tutor of the six-year-old Andrew, remained in Naples for a while. However, there is no source for that, as Đura Hardi emphasizes. Nicholas participated in the war against the Duchy of Austria in the summer of 1336. He was present at the siege of the fort of Kreisbach (near present-day Wilhelmsburg) in July.