“The title Baron Ashburnham…, of Ashburnham in the County of Sussex, was created in the Peerage of England in 1689 for John Ashburnham, grandson of the John Ashburnham who assisted King Charles I to escape from Oxford and Hampton Court Palace. The 3rd Baron was created Viscount St Asaph, in the Principality of Wales, and Earl of Ashburnham in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1730. The titles all became extinct in 1924, with the death of the 6th Earl; the surviving member of the family was Lady Mary Catherine Charlotte Ashburnham (1890–1953), daughter of the fifth Earl.

The family’s wealth was substantially drawn from the Welsh village of Pembrey; as late as 1873 the earls owned 7,568 acres in Wales. They also owned extensive landholdings across Sussex and the iron industry there. They were their original holdings which were granted to them by William the Conqueror for services rendered by Robert de Crull or de Crioll at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Among the estates were three salt houses and Esseborne which the de Crulls changed to Ashburnham. They took on the name Ashburnham and dropped the name Crull, which had been a common surname among the Anglo-French aristocracy that had dominated England since the Norman conquest. The name change’s evolvement began in the latter days of Edward III of England’s reign when there was a great fear of a French invasion. As a result, the English language experienced a great revival, and the Angloisation of the Anglo-French aristocracy commenced to strengthen a sense of national unity.

The 2nd and 3rd Earls of Ashburnham were successful courtiers. The 4th Earl bought a famous collection of Illuminated manuscripts, which was sold by the 5th Earl, mostly to the British Library, although the Ashburnham Pentateuch is in Paris. The 5th Earl sold off most of the paintings collection, including one of Rembrandt’s self-portraits. He was a supporter of the Spanish Carlist claimant, Juan, Count of Montizón.

The seat of the Earls of Ashburnham was Ashburnham Place in Sussex. It was occupied by the 6th earl’s niece, Lady Catherine Ashburnham (1890–1953), until her death in 1953, and subsequently the contents were sold in 1953 and the land in 1953-1957.[10] The estate was inherited by the Reverend John Bickersteth (1926-1991). The house was reduced in size and turned into a Christian conference centre, which caters to both individuals and groups” (Wikipedia).

“…printer, merchant, and diplomat, was the first Englishman to print books, bringing the printing press to England in 1475 or 1476.…

Probably in 1476, but possibly as early as 1475, Caxton brought his printing press to England. While an undated document, perhaps from early 1475, shows he was still abroad, the evidence of his printed output reveals he was established in England by the second half of 1476. He settled at Westminster rather than in London; he rented premises in Westminster Abbey at the sign of the Red Pale. Presumably he believed he could dispose of his books more easily from Westminster than from London; it was the home of the court and the administration. Many affluent and fashionable people came to Westminster and other tradesmen found them good customers for their wares.

The first book Caxton issued in England was the editio princeps of The Canterbury Tales. This was followed by a stream of printed material consisting of Caxton’s own translations, works of English poets, English historical and chivalric prose, religious and didactic works, and a certain amount of jobbing printing which included material like indulgences. The bulk of this material was in English; work which was done to order might be in Latin. In England he published nothing in French. Over a hundred editions are attributed to Caxton, and some works were probably printed which have not survived. Lists of his editions are available in many sources. The various works he issued can be divided approximately as follows: eighteen he translated, printed, and published, though three works he translated he did not print; sixty-eight he printed and published, though these often included his own prologues and epilogues, and some were edited by Caxton; ten he printed; and a few texts printed abroad were published by him. The material he translated consists almost entirely of French works which had been written or printed recently in France or Flanders, for these could be presented as new and fashionable to his English buyers. The material he printed and published consisted of poetry in the Chaucerian style (rather than that in the alliterative style) and prose which was historical, religious, or chivalric, as well as works that had been translated by noblemen such as Anthony, Earl Rivers (d. 1483), the brother-in-law of Edward IV, or by clerics like John Trevisa (d. 1402)” (DNB).

“…poet and administrator, was probably born in the early 1340s. Neither the date nor the place of his birth can be fixed with certainty. Since in October 1386, in his testimony in the Scrope v. Grosvenor trial, he described himself as ‘forty and more’, he cannot have been born later than 1345; it is usually assumed that he was born at the beginning of the decade. The precise date of 1343 sometimes given is based on the assumption that at the time of the trial he was forty-two or forty-three and that his further remark, that he had been ‘armed’ (that is, commissioned to bear arms in the king’s service) for twenty-seven years implies that this took place in 1359 when he was sixteen. However, men seem to have been first armed at a variety of ages.…

There is no record of Chaucer after 5 June 1400, and no will survives. Between 28 September 1400 and 28 September in the following year the Westminster tenancy passed to a Master Paul. The traditional date of his death, 25 October 1400, depends upon an inscription placed on a tomb in the abbey in 1556, and may very well be correct. He was buried, according to Caxton, at the entrance to the chapel of St Benedict in Westminster Abbey. The fact that he was not buried in the church or cemetery of St Margaret in the abbey precinct, of which he was a parishioner, but in the abbey itself, suggests that he specifically requested burial in the latter. The sixteenth-century tomb (now in Poets’ Corner) probably contains his remains: ‘bones which were exposed when Robert Browning was buried in the east aisle of the transept in 1889 were measured by the coroner, who estimated that they had belonged to a man about five feet six inches in height’ (Crow, Michael Martin. Chaucer life-records, edited by Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson, from materials compiled by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert with the assistance of Lilian J. Redstone and others. [Austin] University of Texas Press [1966]., 549)” (DNB).