Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/40

 and, arts. ‘Billing’ and ‘Markham’), having precedence over Yelverton and Bingham, justices of the king's bench; and this office he retained in spite of political changes. For when henry VI for a few months regained the throne new patents were at once issued, 9 Oct. 1470; and when Edward IV overthrew him, 17 June 1471 (, wrongly, 1472, and so ), he, along with almost all the other judges, was confirmed in his seat. It is suggested that he may have owed this less to his legal talents than to the support of the Earl of Warwick. In 1477 (not as Campbell, 1470; see, iii. 261) Billing tried Burdet of Arrow, in Warwickshire, a dependent of the Duke of Clarence, for treason, committed in 1474, in saying of a stag, ‘I wish that the buck, horns and all, were in the king's belly,’ for which he was executed (1 State Trials, 275). Billing is also said to have been concerned in the trial of the Duke of Clarence himself (''Rot. Parl''. vi. 193). He continued to sit in court until 5 May 1481 (1482, ), when he died and was buried in Bittlesden Abbey. His tombstone is now in Wappenham Church, Northamptonshire. His successor was Sir John Hussey or Husee. He was twice married, first to Katerina, who died 8 March 1479, second to Mary, daughter and heir of Robert Wesenham of Conington in Huntingdonshire, who had previously been married to Thomas Lang, and then to William Cotton of Redware, Staffordshire. She died in 1499, and was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster, which she and Sir Thomas Billing had rebuilt. By his first wife he had issue four daughters and five sons, one of whom, Thomas, his heir, died in 1500 without male issue, and was buried with his father and mother.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chief Justices; Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales; Coke's Institutes, preface; Gairdner's Paston Letters, i. 302; Close Roll, 13 Edw. IV, m. 5.] 

 BILLINGHAM or BULLINGHAM, RICHARD (fl. 1350), a schoolman, whose name appears on the rolls of Merton College, Oxford, between 1344 and 1350 (, Bibl. Brit. p. 100), is mentioned by Wood (Antiquities of Oxford, i. 447 seqq.) as having been concerned in a riot arising about an election to the chancellorship of the university in 1349. Tanner states that he became a priest of Sion, but as that religious house was not founded until 1414 we must suppose that he has confounded two different persons. Billingham's works, all of a theological and scholastic character, are enumerated by Bale, 'Script, Brit. Cat.' vi. 8. Among the numerous ways in which the name is spelled, the only one that calls for special notice is Gillingham, and this is easily accounted for as a palæographical blunder. [Authorities cited above.]

 BILLINGS, JOSEPH (b. 1758?), explorer, captain in the Russian navy, in 1776 entered on board the Discovery, one of the two ships that sailed under the command of Captain Cook on his last fatal voyage. He was rated as A.B., and in September 1779, after Cook's death, was transferred with the same rating to the Resolution. He is described in the ply-book of the Resolution as a native of Tumham Green, and at that time aged twenty-one. Some time after the return of the expedition to England Billings being at St. Petersburg, whither he had probably gone as mate of a merchant ship, was induced to enter into the Russian navy with the rank of lieutenant ; and when, in 1784, the empress determined to send out an expedition to explore the extreme north-eastern parts of Asia, Billings, known by repute as the 'companion' of Cook, was judged a fitting man to command it. He was definitely appointed in August 1786, the objects of the expedition, as laid down in his instructions, being 'the exact determination of the latitude and longitude of the mouth of the river Kovima, and the situation of the great promontory of the Tchukchees as far as the East Cape ; the forming an exact chart of the islands in the Eastern Ocean extending to the coast America ; and, in short, the bringing to perfection the knowledge of the seas lying between the continent of Siberia and the opposite coast of America.' He received at the same time the rank of captain-lieutenant, and was instructed, on arriving at certain definite points, to take the further rank of captain of the second class and captain of the first class. Early in September an officer, with a competent staff, was sent on to Ochotsk to make arrangements for constructing two ships ; and the expedition, in several detachments, proceeded to Irkutsk, where it assembled in February 1786.

A very full account of the expedition was published by the secretary, Mr. Sauer. In the course of nine years it carried out the objects prescribed for it with such exactness as was then attainable. Of Billings personally we have no information beyond what is contained in Mr. Sauer's book. Mr. Sauer did not love his captain, and implies that he was greedy, selfish, ignorant, and tyrannical, but makes no definite charge. We can only say that Billings successfully commanded the expedition during the whole