Henry Billingsley

[1][2] 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.

[12] His father died in 1553,[13] 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 master[14][15] and former lord mayor.

[19] 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.

"[11]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.

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".

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.

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.

The work was printed in folio by John Day, "Cum Privilegio", and included several three-dimensional fold-up diagrams illustrating solid geometry.

[35] Anthony à Wood, who received his story through Thomas Allen and Brian Twyne,[38] clearly attributed the translation to Billingsley:"When Whytehead died he gave his scholar all his mathematical observations that he had made and collected, together with his notes on Euclid's Elements, which he had with great pains drawn up and digested.

Afterwards our author Billingsley translated the said Elements into English, and added thereunto plain declarations and examples, manifold additions, scholia's, annotations and inventions, from the best mathematicians both in time past, and in the age he lived in.

He dedicated his edition to Cuthbert Tunstall,[47] the Catholic humanist bishop of Durham who held office almost uninterruptedly from 1530 until 1559, when he was deposed for refusing to support the appointment of Matthew Parker.

[48] Having served two years as city Auditor, 1580-82, he took his first term as Master of the Haberdashers in 1584-1585, simultaneously being chosen Sheriff of London in 1584, in the mayoralty of Sir Thomas Pullyson, and began his career as alderman (for Tower Ward) in 1585, as his wife's brother-in-law Wolstan Dixie succeeded to the mayoral chair.

In November 1586 Billingsley's mother, Dame Elizabeth, died and was buried in the vault of Sir Martin Bowes at St Mary Woolnoth.

[54] With Peter Osborne and Edward Fenton, in 1588 Billingsley was assigned by Lord Burghley and Walsingham to the control and audit of the financial accounts of the expedition of Drake and Sir John Norreys against the Spanish in 1589.

As a daughter and sister of the governors of Pendennis Castle,[58] and a granddaughter of Philip Wolverston (of Woolverstone, Suffolk),[59][60][61] she brought suitably maritime connections to the affair.

(Billingsley and Richard Saltonstall were proposing a new joint stock venture of merchants to provision the city with corn, and to effect an import of wheat and rye to be exempted from customs.

In December the Privy Council further required the city to provide ten ships for the public service, to which a committee responded with what was tantamount to a refusal, pleading the great poverty of the citizens, not to mention their dissatisfaction with the distribution of the spoils from the expedition to Cádiz - a venture towards which they had contributed without gaining any relief upon their debt.

In response, the queen commanded the livery companies to refrain from holding their accustomed feasts during the summer of 1597, and to apply half the money saved to the relief of the destitute citizenry: which was accordingly done.

Dame Elizabeth Billingsley died in 1603, and Sir Henry made his fifth and last marriage to Susan Tracy (widow of the Ecclesiastical Registrar Edward Barker).

At the time of his death his London dwelling was beside the churchyard in St Katherine Coleman by Aldgate, a lifetime occupancy of which he left to his widow Dame Susan Billingsley.

The king granted all mining rights to his own lessee in 1609, who was thoroughly obstructed: a Survey conducted by John Norden in 1615[86] showed that large amounts of coal were being extracted annually, and listed Sir Henry Billingsley (the younger) as holding 810 acres there, the third largest private claim.

Their names were inscribed on a fair floor slab beside the communion table, near to the place where a small alabaster monument to Elizabeth Billingsley was fixed to the wall on the north side of the chancel, with her own inscription and a Latin verse epitaph, written in the person (and presumably by the hand) of her husband.

)[91] By indenture dated 1616, Dame Susan (the surviving widow) granted an annuity or yearly rent-charge of £6.13s.4d arising from the former priory of Clifford, Herefordshire, for the relief of the poor in St Thomas' Hospital, London.