is a defect of birth objected to one born out of wedlock. Eustathius will have bastards among the Greeks to have been in equal favour with legitimate children, as low as the Trojan war; but the course of antiquity seems against him. Potter and others show, that there never was a time when bastardy was not in disgrace.

In the time of William the Conqueror, however, bastardy seems not to have implied any reproach, if we may judge from the circumstance of that monarch himself not scrupling to assume the appellation of bastard. His epistle to Alan count of Bretagne begins, Ego

relation to its trial in law, is distinguished into general and special. General bastardy is a certificate from the bishop of the diocese, to the king's justices, after inquiry made, whether the party is a bastard or not, upon some question of inheritance. Bastardy special is a suit commenced in the king's courts against a person that calls another a bastard.

Arms of BASTARDY should be crossed with a bar, fillet, or traverse from the right to the left. They were not formerly allowed to carry the arms of their father, and therefore they invented arms for themselves; and this is still done by the natural sons of a king.

Right of Bastardy, Droit de bastardise, in the French laws, is a right, in virtue whereof the effects of bastards dying intestate devolve to the king or lord.