Of Caxton's domestic affairs we know hardly anything. A lucky discovery made by Mr. Gairdner in the Public Record Office proves that he was a married man. This is a copy of a document produced in a lawsuit relating to a separation between Gerard Croppe, a tailor of Westminster, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Caxton, and dated the 11th of May, 1496. Each was bound over, under penalty of one hundred pounds, not to vex, sue, or trouble the other about any matters relating to their marriage, and to live for the future apart, unless the said Gerard could recover the love and favour of the said Elizabeth. This having been agreed to, Gerard was to receive out of the bequest of William Caxton twenty printed Legends at thirteen shillings and four pence a Legend, giving a general quittance to the executors of William Caxton.
Could the record of the original trial be recovered, the evidence of the various witnesses would no doubt afford much information.
In the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, there occurs an entry in the year 1490.
"Item atte Bureyng of Mawde Caxston for torches and tapres iijs. ijd."
This has been supposed to refer to Caxton's wife, but beyond the similarity of names there is no evidence to support the conjecture. In the same way, too, the entry of a William Caxton's burial in 1479 in the parish records of St. Margaret's has caused several to conjecture that this may have been the printer's father.
It appears almost certain that Caxton left no son, for all his printing material passed into the hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who had for some time been his assistant.
Wynkyn de Worde, who took out letters of denization in April, 1496, is described as a printer, and a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. Many writers have mistakenly derived his name from the town of Woerden in Holland, whereas he really came from the town of Worth in Alsace, and sometimes uses the name Worth in place of Worde. The suggestion, too, that he came with Caxton from Bruges would appear improbable, for as that event took place in 1476, and De Worde did not die until 1535, he would have been too young to be an assistant.
Amongst the documents, however, in Westminster Abbey is one dated 1480, relating to the giving up of a tenement by Elizabeth, wife of Wynand van Worden. If this really refers to the printer, it is clear that he must have married an Englishwoman, who would be able to hold property, which the husband, as an alien, could not. It makes it also appear probable that he was an assistant of Caxton when he established himself as an English printer in 1476, but De Worde must at that time have been a fairly young man.
Several other printers have been quoted as apprentices of Caxton by different writers, but without any authority. Blades mentions Pynson, and even goes so far as to say that he used Caxton's device, a mistake which may be traced to an imperfect copy of Pynson's Speculum Vitae Christi in the British Museum, formerly in the Offor Library, which has a leaf with Caxton's device inserted at the end.
Although Caxton makes frequent mention of the homeliness and rudeness of his language, yet it is clear that these expressions must not be taken quite literally. He was born in the Weald of Kent, where the peasants no doubt spoke a very marked dialect, but his own English shows no signs of this. His family was not of the peasant class, and he had received a good education, though where he does not say. Living as an apprentice in the house of one of the richest and most important London merchants, and in the company of his fellow-apprentices, he would soon lose any provincialisms he might possess. His position as head of the English merchants abroad, and his confidential position at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, could hardly have been reached by one who spoke rude and provincial language. His statements must be taken rather as expressions of the mock humility which it was the fashion of the time to insert in prefaces, especially when they were addressed to people in high rank.