This _sobriquet_ of _False Thief_ stuck to him, and has been by many writers asserted to be the origin of the family name--corrupted into Fals-taff. Nothing is easier of refutation. In the first place, it is improbable that a gentleman should voluntarily adopt, as his family title, a term of ignominy and reproach. Moreover, the name is known to be of ancient Saxon origin, derived from Fel-staf--felling-staff, or cudgel; clearly tracing the antiquity of the house as far back as those barbarous times when the savage German warriors took their names from their favourite weapons. There is a curious old record (in the Strongate Collection), of the time of Edward the Elder, in which one Keingelt Felstaf appeals to the brethren of a Sodalitium, or fraternity of mutual protection, whereof he is a member, to subscribe two marks apiece towards the liquidation of a fine levied on him for the murder of three ceorles, which he is unable to pay, owing to the straitened circumstances of his family. He adds, that there is another fine against him for a like offence; but the victim in this case being only a Welchman, he believes he will be able to meet it without assistance. Hundwulf Falstaff died in 1088, at the age of fifty-four, it is supposed of a broken heart, caused by the ingratitude of a monarch whom he had so efficiently and loyally served, aggravated by the unnatural conduct of his two daughters, whom, in pursuance of his cherished scheme of attaching himself to the Norman aristocracy, he had bestowed in marriage, with the dowry of a substantial estate apiece, on two poor knights of Guienne,--Philip le Borgne and Hugues le Bossu (surnamed Bandylegs). These ladies immediately after their marriage deserted their munificent parent for the gaieties of a court life; refusing even to recognise him in the public thoroughfares, except on pressing occasion for pecuniary assistance. The Falstaff possessions were further crippled in this reign by repeated gifts to divers Norman noblemen, who being chivalrous gentlemen, with an instinctive abhorrence of wrong, got up frequent agitations against Hundwulf; suggesting to their monarch the propriety of hanging up that chieftain for his glaring political immorality, and distributing his estates among themselves--men of spotless integrity. These agitations generally broke out at a time of national pressure, and Hundwulf found no means of allaying them but the one already alluded to. Thus, early after its acquisition, were the seeds of decay sown in the very system of the great Falstaff estate; which, as the sequel will prove, may be likened to a strong man attacked with a mortal disease, who may live and struggle for years, but whose every effort to recover strength serves to hasten his dissolution.