A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Elwes (d. 192 1), the 'beloved squire' and famous 

 singer. 



About a mile south from the village the river is 

 crossed by a stone bridge of some antiquity which was 

 formerly of great importance as part of the thorough- 

 fare from Northampton to Horton on the London road. 

 In 1274 Roger de Wanton was accused of having 

 appropriated to himself for the last four years the tolls 

 of the millstones taken into Northampton, 2d. being 

 exacted from each pair.' The Liber Custumarum of 

 Northampton, drawn up about 1460, orders 'all mer- 

 chants to pay customs at Byllyng brygge',- and Justinian 

 Bracegirdle, rector of Great Billing, who died in 1625, 

 left money towards keeping the bridge in good repair.-' 

 Baker mentions that the tolls, then called the Duchy 

 Tolls, were paid to the Earl of Pomfret in 1820, the 

 bridge being repaired to the centre arch by Billing 

 parish and beyond by Brafield and Houghton.* 



The mill held by St. James's Abbey during the Middle 

 Ages lies on the river to the west of the bridge. 



Part of the parish was inclosed under an Act passed 

 in 1778.5 In 1935 Great and Little Billing were com- 

 bined to form the civil parish of Billing. 



There is a Roman Catholic church, dedicated to the 

 Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was built as a 

 Village Hall by the late Mr. Robert Elwes and was con- 

 verted to its present use in 1878 by Mr. Cary Elwes, and 

 enlarged in 1926. There is a small Methodist chapel. 



In 1086 Gilbert the Cook held Billing of 

 MANOR the king* but the estate escheated to the 

 Crown and was granted in moieties, one of 

 which passed to the Mortimers, Earls of March, pro- 

 bably on the marriage of Milicent, daughter of Robert 

 Earl Ferrers, with Roger Mortimer who died in 1215.' 

 This part of the overlordship remained vested in the 

 Mortimers, as of their honor of Wigmore, and was 

 finally merged in the Crown in the person of Edward I V.^ 

 The other moiety was apparently bestowed upon 

 William Meschines, and passed by marriage into the de 

 Courci family in the reign of Henry II,' and afterwards 

 through the Fitzgeralds and de Redvers, Earls of Devon, 

 to the de Forz, Earls of Albemarle, on the failure of 

 whose line in 1 293 it was inherited by the Lisles of 

 Rougemont.'° In 1368 Robert Lisle granted the whole 

 honor to Edward III," by whom four years after it was 

 bestowed upon John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,'^ 

 and this moiety of the overlordship was also merged in 

 the Crown by the accession of the latter's son to the 

 throne as Henry IV in 1399. 



The manor oi BILLING was in the possession of the 

 family of Barry from the middle of the 1 2th century 

 until the beginning of the reign of Richard II, but little 



Barry. Azure tiuo leo- 

 pards or. 



is known of the earlier members. Their chief seat was at 

 Stanton Barry, Buckinghamshire.'^ William Barry, who 

 gave Billing Church to Leicester Abbey, held i fee of 

 the de Courcy barony in 1 166.''* Ralph, who held land 

 in Billing in ii8i,'5 died before 1202, and his suc- 

 cessor Simon, probably his brother, in 1221.'* On the 

 death of Simon's son Ralph the 

 manor passed to his brother 

 Peter," who was holding it in 

 1240.'^ Peter's son, Robert 

 Barry, was accused in 1 2 74 of not 

 having paid suit to the hundred 

 court for the last three years." In 

 1 309 he settled the manor on his 

 son Thomas^" and died r. 1 3 20,^' 

 his wife Maud surviving until c. 

 1326.^^ Thomas, his son, died 

 in 1325 leaving a widow Pernel 

 and a son, Robert, then a minor. ^■' Robert died before 

 1349, the date of the death of his widow Cecily, when 

 their son William, then 7 years old, inherited the manor^* 

 and was in possession in 1368.^^ Stanton Barry was in 

 the hands of William in 1377 and was inherited by his 

 daughter Pernel, the wife of Hugh Boveton of Yardley 

 Gobion,-* but Billing must have been alienated by 

 William before his death as in 1399 it was in the 

 possession of Peter Barentyn-^ and was subsequently 

 acquired by Sir Nicholas Lilling, who in 141 1 made a 

 settlement of it to himself and his wife Mary for life, 

 and after their deaths to Margaret Holand, Countess of 

 Somerset.^* Sir Nicholas died in 1417,^' and after the 

 death of his wife the manor became the right of the 

 Countess of Somerset, passing to her grand-daughter 

 and heir Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, 

 mother of Henry VII, who married as her third hus- 

 band, in 1482, Thomas Lord Stanley, afterwards Earl 

 of Derby, upon whom she settled the manor. ^^ On the 

 accession of Richard III her lands were forfeited, and 

 the reversion of the manor granted to John de la Pole, 

 Earl of Lincoln," the king's favourite nephew, but the 

 grant was never realized, for while the life-tenant. Sir 

 Thomas Stanley, was still alive, Henry VII acquired the 

 throne and annulled the act of forfeiture.'^ On the 

 death of Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby in 

 1509, a few months after that of her son, the manor 

 passed to Henry VIII, as grandson and heir,'-' and by 

 him was granted in 15 13 to Sir John Ferneux, with 

 licence to alienate it in mortmain to the Dean and 

 Canons of St. George's, Windsor Castle.'* This grant, 

 however, must afterwards have been rescinded by the 

 king, who in 1525 bestowed the manor upon his 

 illegitimate son, Henry Duke of Richmond. '^ The latter 



' Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 13, 15. 



2 C. A. Markham, Liber Custumarum of 

 Northampton. 



3 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cccclxxxix, 

 no. 142. 



< Baker, Ncrthants. i, 18. 



5 Acts Priv. and Loc, 18 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 10. 



' y.C.H. Nortkants. i, 355. 



' G.E.C. Peerage'^ Dugdale, Baronage., 

 i, 128. No reference to the Ferrers over- 

 lordship of BiUing can be found, but it is 

 most probable that this land passed, as in 

 other cases, to the Mortimers through the 

 Ferrers, 



' Bk. of Fees, 497, 934; Feud. Aids, iv. 

 16 y Chan. Inq. p.m. 32 Edw. I, no. 63 j 

 ibid. 34 Edw. Ill (ist nos.), 86; ibid. 22 

 Rich. II, no. 34; ibid. 3 Hen. VI, no. 32. 



^ Hearne, Liber Niger, i, 91; Dugdale, 

 Baronage, ii, 451. 



'» G.E.C. Peerage; Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. 

 Com.), 160; Testa de Nevill {Rec. Com.), 

 23 ; Feud. Aids, iv, 16. 



" Cal. Close, 1364-9, pp. 496, 498. 



'2 Abbre-v. Pot. Orig. (Rec. Com.), ii. 

 321. '3 r.C.H. Bucks, iv, 462. 



'* Hearne, L/^er //;^^r, i, 91. 



"5 Pipe R. 27 Hen. II, m. 5. 



■<i Ibid. Beds, and Bucks. 5 Hen. Ill, 

 m. 4 d. 



" Cott. MS. Tib. E. V, fols. loi, 102; 

 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xvii, fol. 62. 



'^ Feet of F. Northants. 24 Hen. Ill, no. 

 387; Bk. of Fees, 931. 



"> Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii. 13. 



2" Inq. a. q. d. file Ixxviii, no. 6; Feet of 

 F. Northants. 5 Edw. II, no. 113. 



2' Orig. R. i4Edw. II, m. 11. 



2^ Chan. Inq. p.m. 19 Edw. II, no. 41. 



" Ibid. 1 8 Edw. II, no. 63 ; Ahbre-v. Rot. 

 Orig. (Rec. Com.), i. 295. 



^* Chan. Inq. p.m. 23 Edw. Ill (pt. i), 

 no, 24. 



^s Abbre-v. Rot. Orig. (Rec. Com.), ii, 

 300. 



" F.C.H. Bucks, iv, 463, 



^' Chan, Inq. p.m, 22 Rich, II, no, 34, 



28 Feet of F, Northants, 12 Hen, IV, 

 no. 97, 



2' Chan. Inq. p.m. 5 Hen. V, no. 47. 



30 G.E.C. Peerage. 



3' Cal. Pat. 1496-S5, p. 388. 



32 Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), vi. 311. 



33 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), xxv, 63. 



34 L. and P. Hen. P'lll, i. 666. 



35 Pat. R. 17 Hen. VIII, pt. 2, m. 9. 



70 



