thumb|300px|right|Woodcut showing a hearing
In the law of England and Wales, a bastard (also historically called whoreson, although both of these terms have largely dropped from common usage) is an illegitimate child, one whose parents were not married at the time of their birth. Until 1926, there was no possibility of post factum legitimisation of a bastard.
Etymology
The word bastard is from the Old French , which in turn was from Medieval Latin . In the modern French , the circumflex (â) merely represents the loss of the 's' over time. According to some sources, may have come from the word , which means pack saddle, the connection possibly being the idea that a bastard might be the child of a passing traveller (who would have a pack saddle). In support of this is the Old French phrase loosely meaning "child of the saddle", which had a similar meaning.