Caxton’s business work began as an apprentice to Robert Large, who was an eminent member of the Mercers’ Company of London. It is the conclusion of Mr. Blades, who has made himself the authority on the subject of Caxton, that the admission of the young Kentishman to such a household as that of Large was in itself sufficient evidence, under the conditions of the time, that Caxton was a man of good family. It is Mr. Blades’s belief that Caxton was a descendant of the Caunstons, who owned the manor of Caunston in the Weald. In 1441, when Caxton was about twenty years old, his first master died and he was sent to Bruges, where he became a member of the English _House_ or the English _Nation_, the term applied to the association of English merchants residing in Bruges, and carrying on from there business with England and with the other trade centres of the Continent. His early associations had given him some preparation for a sojourn in Flanders. A colony of Flemish wool-manufacturers had been established in the Weald by Edward III., and the Flemings, having inter-married with the Kentish families, had impressed their language and their social habits very largely upon that portion of the county. Of the English _Nation_ in Bruges Caxton became governor, in or about 1462, a position which made him the leading Englishman in the dominions of Burgundy. His selection for such a position confirms the impression that he was a man of birth, while it was also evidence that he had been successful in his business undertakings and that he was recognised as a man of character and of executive ability. His position brought him into official relations with the Court of Burgundy and with the new Duke, Charles the Bold, who, in 1467, succeeded his father, Philip the Good. Princess Margaret of England, the sister of King Edward IV., who became the wife of Charles, seems to have taken a keen, personal interest in Caxton, and, a year or two after her coming to Bruges, she induced him to give up his mercantile career and his honourable position as governor of the English merchants and to attach himself to her personal service. Lord Scales, afterward Earl Rivers, who had visited Bruges as one of the ambassadors to conclude the treaty of marriage, was, later, one of the most liberal patrons of Caxton the printer, and his translation of the _Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers_ was the first book with the date of imprint issued from Caxton’s London Press.[43]