"All sorts of terms are used to indicate this condition, but the word "bastard" is not used anything like so often as its various synonyms; this is as it should be, as the word (of doubtful etymology) is more properly applied to the "bye-blows" of the great than to the produce of proletarian promiscuity. The earliest known application of the term is to the Conqueror, who styled himself, "Ego Wilhelmus Cognomine Bastardus.""