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. [20] [21] 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 àWood 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." [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. 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. [22] 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". [23]
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, [24] 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, [25] 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." [26]
Cooke's eldest daughter (Mildred Cooke) was the wife of William Cecil,1st Baron Burleigh,a pupil of Cheke's,who had first married Cheke's sister;her sister Anna married Sir Nicholas Bacon (Lord Keeper);the third,Elizabeth,married first Sir Thomas Hoby (died 1566),and then John Russell;another (Katherine Cooke) [27] was the wife of Sir Henry Killigrew,brother of that Sir John Killigrew whose daughter Katherine later married Sir Henry Billingsley. [28]
Euclid's Elements (1570)
The considerable labour involved in the translation from Latin of the Commentaries,and of their being made ready for the press in 1568,is all the more remarkable in that it preceded by only two years the publication of his more lasting monumental work,the first full English translation of The Elements of Geometry of Euclid of Alexandria,translated from a Greek recension. [29] [30] Indeed,in his Euclid,Billingsley stated that he had also completed,ready for the press,an English translation of the De Sphericis of Theodosius, [31] although that is not known to have survived. [32] The production of these scholarly works,brilliantly carried over from two academic languages and in two disciplines of thought,was somewhat prodigious.
Billingsley opens his Euclid with the following remarks:
"There is (gentle Reader) nothing (the word of God set onely apart) which so much beautifieth and adorneth the soule and minde of man,as doth the knowledge of good artes and sciences:as the knowledge of naturall and morall Philosophie. The one setteth before our eyes,the creatures of God,both in the heavens above,and in the earth beneath:in which as in a glasse,we beholde the exceding maiestie and wisdome of God,in adorning and beautifying them,as we see:in geving unto them such wonderfull and manifolde proprieties,and naturall workinges,and that so diversly and in such varietie:farther in maintaining and conserving them continually,whereby to praise and adore him,as by S. Paule we are taught. The other teacheth us rules and preceptes of vertue,how,in common life amongest men,we ought to walke uprightly:what dueties pertaine to our selves,what pertaine to the government or good order both of an housholde,and also of a citie or common wealth." [33]
The Euclid (which the title-page mistakenly attributes to the philosopher Euclid of Megara,a common confusion in the Renaissance period) [34] is not merely a translation,renowned for its clarity and accuracy,of its Greek exemplar but also an extremely extensive collection of notes,illustrations and demonstrations of every stage of the discourse. The work included a lengthy "Mathematicall preface" by John Dee,which surveyed all the existing branches of pure and applied mathematics,and he provided notes and "inventions mathematicall",and other supplementary material after Chapter 10, [35] where Dee is suitably acknowledged. The work was printed in folio by John Day,"Cum Privilegio",and included several three-dimensional fold-up diagrams illustrating solid geometry. Though not the very first,it was one of the first books to include such a feature.
As to authorship,some have thought that Dee or Whytehead [36] were the true authors. Augustus De Morgan suggested that the translation was solely the work of Dee; [37] but Dr Dee,in his miscellaneous pamphlets,specifically attributes the main work of the Euclid to Billingsley. [35] Anthony àWood,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. [39] Which being done,he published them..." [11]
Since the book was published in 1570,and Whytehead died in 1571,the collation of his notes (if it occurred as described) must have been a living collaboration. Billingsley in his Errata stated that he had to correct the pages himself with the printer,and to list further corrigenda,because John Day had no corrector acquainted with the subject-matter. [40]
Billingsley's own annotated copy of the Greek Euclid,in the library of Princeton University,provided the evidence for G.B. Halsted's 1879 study affirming that the translation was not from the well-known Latin translation of Campanus,and was Billingsley's own work. [41] This 1533 Greek version was the edition of Simon Grynaeus,the Editio princeps of the complete Greek text of Euclid's Elements. [42] Grynaeus was Professor of Greek at the University of Basel,and he tells us that his text was a collation of a manuscript sent from Venice by Lazarus Bayfius (Lazare de Baïf,French ambassador in Venice) with another sent from Paris by John Ruellius (Jean Ruel), [43] [44] with (as appears from his notations) some reference to Bartolomeo Zamberti's Latin version from the Greek produced in 1505 in Venice. [45] [46] Grynaeus incorporated the Commentary on Book I by Proclus,from a manuscript provided by John Claymond,President of Magdalen College,Oxford and of Corpus Christi College,Oxford. [43] Grynaeus was a reformist,a schoolfellow of Philip Melanchthon,and when visiting England in 1531 gained his introduction to Sir Thomas More with the help of a letter from Erasmus. 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.
