names said to have sprung from this, I find a difficulty sets in. We have the clear statement of the author of the ‘Promptorium Parvulorum’ that ‘Malkyne’ in his day was the sobriquet of Matilda, that is, ‘Mawdkin.’ On the other hand, I find Halliwell has a single quotation from a manuscript in which Maid Marion is styled Malkyn also.[66] All modern writers, saving Mr. Lower, who has come to no decision at all, have comfortably put it down to this latter. I have no hesitation whatever myself in deciding differently, or at least in qualifying their conclusion. There can be scarcely any doubt, I think, that Malkin was originally the pet name of Matilda; then, as that favourite name gradually sunk in estimation, and Mary proportionately advanced, but this much later on, it was transferred. Thus, if I am correct, our ‘Makinsons’ and ‘Makins,’[67] our ‘Meakins’ and ‘Meekins,’ and our ‘Mawsons’[68] will be sprung from Maud, rather than Mary. In confirmation of this, I may quote ‘Malkin,’ the early cant term for a ‘slut,’ a word as old as Chaucer himself, and one that Mary could not have possibly acquired in his day, as barely familiar. ‘Mawdkin’ or ‘Malkin,’ on the other hand, would be the ordinary term for every household drudge. It is only those who have carefully studied early registers who can realize the difference of position ‘Matilda’ and ‘Mary’ relatively occupy at such a period as this. There were six ‘Matildas’ of royal lineage between William I. and Henry II. alone. It greets one at every turn; the present popularity of the latter is entirely the growth of a later and more superstitious age.[69]