Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/60

 :: London, 1816, 8vo, first American edition, Exeter, U.S., 1824, 8vo.
 * 1)   ‘A Digest of the Law of Landlord and Tenant,’ London, 1820, 8vo.
 * 2) ‘A System of Shorthand, on the principle of the Association of Ideas,’ London, 1821, 8vo; a stenographic system of no practical value.
 * 3) ‘Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Court of Common Pleas and other Courts,’ from Easter term 1819, to Michaelmas term 1840, 19 vols., London, 1821–40, 8vo. The first three volumes of these reports were compiled jointly with W. J. Broderip.



BINGHAM or BYNGHAM, RICHARD (1528–1599), governor of Connaught, was the third son of Richard Bingham, of Melcombe-Bingham, Dorsetshire, by his wife Alice, daughter of Thomas Coker. Born in 1528, he was trained as a soldier from youth, and apparently took part in the Protector Somerset's expedition to Scotland in 1547. He was one of the Englishmen serving with the Spaniards against the French at the battle of St. Quentin in 1557, and in October 1558, just before the death of Queen Mary, was engaged in a naval expedition against the 'Out-isles' of Scotland. In the early years of Elizabeth's reign he fought with the Spaniards and Venetians, under Don John of Austria, against the Turks, and seems to have taken part in the conquest of Cyprus and the battle of Lepanto (7 Oct. 1572). In 1573 and the following year Bingham was in the Low Counties, communicating to Burghley the details of the struggle with Spain. In 1576 he accompanied Sir Edward Horsey on an abortive mission to Don John of Austria to effect a peace between between Spain and the States-General of Holland. On 17 March 1577–8 Elizabeth granted Bingham an annuity of fifty marks in recognition of his military and diplomatic services, and later in 1578 he fought with exceptional valour as a volunteer under the Dutch flag against the Spaniards. In 1579 he was sent to Ireland to aid in the repression of the Desmond insurrection. In September 1580 he was captain of the Swiftsure in the expedition sent under the command of Admiral Winter to dislodge the Spaniards and Italians from Smerwick, where they had landed to support the Irish rebels, and Bingham took part in the massacre of the invaders which followed the attack upon them by sea and land. A full account of the action, sent by Bingham to Walsingham, is now in the Public Record Office. On 30 Sept. 1583 a commission was issued to Bingham to apprehend pirates in the narrow seas, and the queen directed Burghley to instruct Bingham to seize Dutch ships for debts due to her, under colour of looking for pirates.

In the following year (1584) Bingham was appointed governor of Connaught, and knighted at Dublin Castle by Lord-deputy Perrot on 12 July. He was from the first resolved to make the Irish conform to English customs, but he administered the province in the early days of his government with sufficient fairness to satisfy most of his subjects as well as the home government. But during the Connaught rebellion of 1586 Bingham knew no mercy. At Galway early in 1586 he presided at the assizes, when seventy persons were condemned to death for disloyalty. In the same year he laid siege to Cluain-Dubhain or Cloonoon, in Clare, the strongest castle in Ireland, and had the owner, a reputed rebel (Mahon O'Briain) shot, and the garrison put to the sword. Later in 1586 the Bourkes of Mayo broke into open revolt, and Bingham reduced their castle of Lough Mask and hanged its occupants. He confiscated the greater part of the Bourkes' property, and defeated in August, with terrible slaughter, by the river Moy, a party of 3,000 Highlanders who had come over to the aid of the rebels. Sir John Perrot, the lord-deputy, visited Connaught after the suppression of the rebellion and was dissatisfied with Bingham's rigorous action. For the ten following years Perrot and Bingham were repeatedly in personal conflict, and appeal was frequently made to Walsingham to settle the various matters in dispute between them. Bingham was perpetually complaining to Walsingham of the smallness of his salary, and asserted that most of the expenses of government were defrayed out of his own purse. The lord-deputy represented that Bingham was in receipt of an official income of 1,941l. 12s. 4d. but Bingham, in a detailed examination of his sources of revenue, showed that he never received more than 505l. a year. In 1587 Bingham was temporarily recalled from Ireland to take part in the war in the Netherlands, and Lord Willoughby, who highly respected Bingham, was anxious that he should take the command of the army at the close of 1587, when Leicester was ordered home ( Account of Bertie, 132, 138, 143). In 1588 Bingham was frequently in consultation with Burghley and the other ministers as to the defence of the