Sir Henry Billingsley ( – 22 November 1606) was an English scholar and translator, merchant, chief Customs officer for the Port of London in the high age of late Elizabethan piracy, and moneylender, several times Master of the Haberdashers' Company, an alderman, Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London, and twice Member of Parliament for the City.A. Thrush, 'Billingsley, Sir Henry (c.1538-1606), of Fenchurch Street, London', in A. Thrush and J.P. Ferris (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, (from Cambridge University Press 2010), History of Parliament Online. Thrush confuses the sequence of his mother's first two marriages. His 1570 translation (with exemplifications) of Euclid's Geometry, the first from Greek into English, with a lengthy opening essay by Dr John Dee, was a classic of its time and a landmark in mathematical publishing.D.M. Simpkins, 'Early editions of Euclid in England', Annals of Science, Vol. 22, No. 4 (December 1966), pp. 225-49. It appeared only two years after his translation, from the Latin, of the compendious and seminal Commentary, by the leading Reformation theologian Pietro Martire Vermigli, on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, which had been dedicated by its author to the Reformation scholar Sir Anthony Cooke. Both of these important publications were printed by John Daye. Billingsley was for long associated with St Thomas's Hospital in London and was a prominent, worthy and wealthy London citizen, reflecting the examples of his stepfathers Sir Martin Bowes and Thomas Seckford. He was listed in 1617 as a deceased member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries.'Introduction: An Historical Account of the Origin and Establishment of the Society of Antiquaries', Archaeologia. Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Antiquity, I (1770), pp. i-xxxix, at p. xx (Internet Archive).
Early life Henry was the third son (after William and Richard) of William Billingsley,The recurrent mistaken affiliation to Roger Billingsley of Canterbury (rightly the grandfather of Henry) arose from a misreading: it is found as early as the 1618 edition of John Stow's Survay of London, 'Temporall government', at p. 955, sub anno 1596 (Google), though Munday's Briefe Chronicle, of the Successe of Times has it correct in the 1611 edition, p. 606 (Google). Haberdasher of London and an assay master (1546–53) of the Tower Mint,R. Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain and Its Dependencies, 3rd Edition (John Hearne, London 1840), I, p. 34 and p. 40 (Google).'Renaissance and Debasement', in J.H.M. Craig, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948 (Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp. 101–115, at p. 113. and his wife, Elizabeth Harlowe.'Billingsley', in J.J. Howard and G.J. Armytage (eds), The Visitation of London in the year 1568, taken by Robert Cooke (&c.), Harleian Society, I (1869), p. 69 (Internet Archive). Mother's name as "Elizabeth Hardy".'Billingsley', in G. Grazebrook and J.P. Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Shropshire, taken in the year 1623, 2 vols, Harleian Society XXVIII-XXIX (1889), I, pp. 46-47 (Google). He entered St. John's College, Cambridge with a foundation scholarship in 1551. He is also said to have developed an interest in mathematics at the University of Oxford under David Whytehead, who left England in 1553.
His father died in 1553,Will of William Billingsley, Haberdasher of London (P.C.C. 1553, Tashe quire). and in the next year his mother remarried to Sir Martin Bowes, a man of high civic profile, Senior Warden of the Goldsmiths' Company, former mint masterC.E. Challis, The Tudor Coinage (Manchester University Press/Barnes and Noble, New York 1978), pp. 20-82, passim. (See Bowes and W. Billingsley at p. 109).J.D. Alsop, 'The Mint Dispute 1530-32', British Numismatic Journal Vol. LI (British Numismatic Society, London 1981), pp. 197-99 (Society's pdf). and former lord mayor. Henry did not take his degree but was apprenticed to a London merchant. He became a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers by patrimony in 1560, and married his first wife, Elizabeth Bourn, in 1562.'Henry Billingsley', in C.H. Cooper and T. Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses II: 1586-1609 (Deighton, Bell, & Co., Cambridge 1861), pp. 442-43 (Google). Their first child died in early infancy, but the future heir, the second Harry Billingsley, was christened on 20 January 1563/64 at St Peter upon Cornhill.G.W.G. Leveson Gower (ed.), The Register of the Christenings, Burials and Weddings within the Parish of St. Peter's upon Cornhill, London, Harleian Society, Registers, Vols I-IV (1877-1879) I: 1538-1666, Vol. I, pp. 10, 11, and p. 115 (Internet Archive). In 1564 he purchased the manor of Butleigh in SomersetCalendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, Vol. 3: 1563-1566 (HMSO 1960), p. 136, no. 597 (Internet Archive). (a former possession of Glastonbury Abbey), and sold it to the lessee in 1569.M.C. Siraut, A.T. Thacker and E. Williamson, 'Parishes: Butleigh', in R.W. Dunning (ed.), A History of the County of Somerset Vol. 9: Glastonbury and Street (V.C.H., London 2006), pp. 82-102, at p. 86, notes 66-67 (British History Online, accessed 21 September 2023).
Writings and publications In 1567 Sir Martin Bowes died, and Henry's mother again remarried, this time (5 February 1566/67) to the Master of Requests in Ordinary, Thomas Seckford, patron of the cartographer Christopher Saxton.J.L. Chester, ed. G.J. Armytage, Allegations for Marriage Licences Issued by the Bishop of London, Harleian Society Vol. XXV (1887), p. 35 (Google).J.M.S. Brooke and A.W.C. Hallen (eds), The Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of S. Mary Woolnoth and S. Mary Woolchurch Haw (Bowles and Sons, London 1886), p. 126 (HathiTrust). It is clear from the Port Books of London that Billingsley was actively engaged in trade through the later 1560s, no doubt operating through his agents. It is to this period, when he had become master in his own household, that the story of his hospitality towards David Whytehead must belong. It is also the time in which his literary and scholarly work came to fruition, and in which he was collaborating with Dr John Dee.
The connection with Whytehead is described by Anthony à Wood in the following words:"...he became known to an eminent mathematician called Whytehead, then or lately, a fryar of the order of St Augustine in Oxon... when the said Whytehead was put to his shifts, after the demolition of his house in the latter end of Hen. 8 he was received by Henry Billingsley into his family, and by him maintained in his old age in his house in London. In which time he learned mathematics of him, and became so excellent in them, that he went beyond many of his time, whether lay-men, or profess'd scholars."A. a Wood, ed. P. Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses: An Exact History... to which are added the Fasti, New Edition, 3 vols (F.C. and J. Rivington, etc., London 1813), I, Col. 761-62 (Google).
This story, with its sequel, was handed down to Wood in Oxford at three removes from a physician named Robert Barnes, elected Fellow of Merton College in 1537, who was acquainted with both Whytehead and Billingsley. In fact Whytehead, who had tutored the young Charles Brandon (died 1551), and had been recommended by Thomas Cranmer for the archbishopric of Armagh in 1552, had become a Marian exile in 1553. After taking refuge in Emden, in 1554 he took charge of a congregation in Frankfurt, and, having become involved in the expulsion of John Knox from that group, remained there until 1558, when he returned to England, winning the favour and estimation of Queen Elizabeth. He was on the commission to reform the liturgy, but refused a benefice, preferring to travel about wherever he felt needed. He was sequestered in March 1563/64 for refusing to subscribe, being anti-episcopalian. He died in 1571. As Billingsley married in 1562, and completed his scholarly publications in 1570, that is the period of their association.
Commentary of Peter Martyr (1568) The Florentine, Pietro Martire Vermigli, one of the principal luminaries of the English Reformation, was driven out of England in 1553. His interpretative commentaries, embodying the reformist theology and the substance of his teaching, were written in Latin. His Commentaries on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans were published in Latin at Basle in 1558.Pietro Martire Vermigli, In Epistolam S Pauli ad Romanos Commentarii Doctissimi (apud Petrum Pernam, Basle 1558). Full page views of 1559 Zürich edition at Google. The translation in the name of Henry Billingsley is a most compendious work containing some 456 folios (i.e. about 900 pages) of English text declaring and expounding Paul's message that the revelation of the Gospel was sent into the world in order that it should be believed, for the salvation of mankind in all nations, as a mystery hidden since the beginning of the world. The translation itself is a monument of the Reformation. It was printed as of 31 August 1568 by John Daye, "dwelling over Aldersgate beneath S. Martins", '"Cum Gratia et Privilegio Regiae Maiestatis per Decennium".H.B[illingsley] (translator), Most learned and fruitfull commentaries of D. Peter Martir Vermilius Florentine Professor of Diuinitie in the Schole of Tigure, vpon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Romanes (John Daye, London 1568). Full text at Umich/eebo.
The original work was dedicated by Vermigli to Sir Anthony Cooke, a reformation scholar, former tutor to King Edward VI. Leaving England in 1554 Cooke travelled in Europe as a Marian exile with Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas Wroth,E. Powell, The Travels and Life of Sir Thomas Hoby, Kt., Written by Himself. 1547–1564 (Royal Historical Society, London 1902), pp. 116-119 (Internet Archive). and returned to England on the accession of Elizabeth. By this dedication, dated in Latin in 1558, Vermigli (who died in 1562) addressed the hope of a reformed settlement in England under Elizabeth. Cooke died in 1576, and therefore Billingsley's translation of 1568, which included Vermigli's Epistola Nuncupatoria, renewed the homage paid to the dedicatee as one of the living instruments of the Edwardian Reformation.
In Billingsley's English, Vermigli addressed these word to Cooke:"It is a griefe unto me to thinke that that most noble wit, most sacred brest, and incredible piety of that famous King Edward the vj. of that name, your most dear pupill,Rendering "alumni tui dulcissimi". is so sodeinely taken from us. It is a griefe unto me that so many English men, being of great fame and renoum, as well for theyr piety as for theyr knowledge and nobility, are by voluntary exile for religion sake, dispersed throughout externe and straunge countreys: and they which at home were counted moste noble, and heroicall, doe now wander abrode as men obscure, abiect, and in a manner unknowne to all men... I for my part doubtles have, ever since that the time that I dwelt in England, borne a singular love and no smal or vulgar affection towards you, both for your singular piety and learning, and also for the worthy office which you faythfully and with great renoune executed in the Christian publike wealth, in instructing Edward, that most holy King and most worthy to be beloved, whose wit, goodness, religion, and eyther vertues heroical, yea rather Christian, may indede be touched, but can never be praysed according to theyr desert."Vermigli, trans. Billingsley, Preface to Commentaries, extract recited in J.G. Nichols, Literary Remains of King Edward VI, Roxburgh Club, 2 vols (J.B. Nichols & Sons, London 1857), I, pp. 50-51, note (Internet Archive). See a Latin original (1559 Zürich edition) at Google.