SUSSEX.
Knightly.
Ashburnham of Ashburnham, Earl of Ashburnham 1730; Baron 1689.
"A family of stupendous antiquity," writes Fuller. "The most ancient family in these tracts," according to Camden. "Genealogists have given them a Saxon origin," says Brydges; "but that is a fact very difficult to be proved, though very commonly asserted. They do not, I believe, appear in Domesday Book." There can be no doubt, however, that the Ashburnhams have been seated at Ashburnham from the reign of Henry II., and probably from a much earlier period, and are descended from Bertram, Constable of Dover in the reign of William the Conqueror. By the improvidence of Sir John Ashburnham, who died in 1620, this ancient patrimony was lost for a time, but recovered by Frances Holland, the wife of his eldest son John (the groom of the bed-chamber to Charles I.), who sold her whole estate, and laid out the money in redeeming Ashburnham.
Younger Branch. Ashburnham of Bromham in this county, Baronet 1661, descended from Richard, second son of Thomas Ashburnham, living in the reign of Henry VI.
See Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 249; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 283.
Arms.—Gules, a fess between six mullets argent. The earliest seal remaining of any of the ancestors of this family is, I believe, that of "Stephen de Esburne," great-grandson of Bertram, the Constable of Dover: the device is a slip or branch of Ash. His grandson, "Richard de Hasburnan," bore the Maltravers fret, his mother being daughter of Sir John Maltravers: the present coat was borne by Sir John de Aschebornham, in the reign of Edward II. (Seals and Roll of the reign of Edward II.)
Present Representative, Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham.