Of the Ashburnhams old Fuller says, “My poor and plaine pen is willing though unable to add any lustre to this family of stupendous antiquitie.” According to Francis Thynne, a herald of Queen Elizabeth’s time, “Bertram Ashburnham, a Baron of Kent, was Constable of Dover Castle in 1066; which Bertram was beheaded by William the Conqueror because he did so valiantly defend the same against the Duke of Normandy.” This is quoted by the Duchess of Cleveland in her “Battle Abbey Roll,” and she then labours with all her might to demolish the whole story. Gwillim’s “Heraldry,” however, takes the other view, and makes out that the second holder of the office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was this same Bertram Ashburnham, and that it was he who, on behalf of the King, raised the troops to resist the invasion, Harold himself being away engaged in quelling a rebellion in the North. “Since which time until now, by the grace of God, there hath not been wanting an Ashburnham of Ashburnham in Sussex.” [Illustration: PORTRAIT IN MEMORY OF BERTRAM ASHBURNHAM, LORD WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS IN KING HAROLD’S TIME. _From Gwillim’s Heraldry._] Gwillim has a curious engraving of a portrait “in memory of” this hero in seventeenth-century armour, and the tradition in the family is that it was John Ashburnham, King Charles the First’s gentleman, who sat for this very grim effigy. Then there is another story, for which I know not the authority, if, indeed, there be any, to the effect that Bertram Ashburnham defended the Castle so stoutly that William made terms with him and raised the siege, allowing the Saxon to name his own conditions, which were that he and his men should leave with all the honours of war, and that the law of gavelkind should obtain in Kent for all time. This brave tale, I am afraid, must be dismissed as moonshine. So there is much complication, but on one point all the authorities are agreed, and that is the marriage of the Norman knight, Bertram, with the Saxon heiress of Mitford; so far as that goes, if we may not call ourselves a Saxon family, our Saxon descent is not denied to us.