BASTARD BAR. In popular speech we frequently hear of a bar-sinister, as a mark of bastardy. 13ut a bar-sinister, strictly speaking, is an impossibility, inasmuch as the bar (q.v.) is not formed of diagonal but of horizontal lines. A bend-sinister (q.v.), which, by the French, is called a bar, has with more reason been confused with the true mark of illegitimacy, and has on that account been avoided even by heralds. But the real B. B. differs very essentially from the bend-sinister, being half of the scarp, which again it half of the bend-sinister. " The half of the scarp," says Nisbet, " with the English, is called a baton-sinister; by the French, baston-sinister; it is never carried in arms but as a mark of illegitimation, commonly called the bastard bar." In modern practice, the baton does not touch the extremities of the shield, or of the quarter in which the paternal arms are placed, but is is, cut short at the ends. In this form the baton, when used as a mark of illegitimacy, is placed over the paternal coat of the bastard, whether used singly or in a quartered shield. Nisbet informs us that the baton-sinister, both in England and Scotland, is comparatively of modern invention, natural children in earlier times not having been permitted to assume the arms or even the names of their fathers. "The unlawful children of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, begot on Katharine, daughter of sir Payen Boat Guyn, king of arms, did not carry the arms of their father the king, though nobilitate, with a baton-sinister, as now used; . .
but after the legitimation of these three natural sons by act of parliament, they then assumed the sovereign ensigns of England, within a bordure gobbonated (q.v.), argent and azure." According to the practice of France, which probably was followed in England also, the bastard could not cancel or alter the baton without the consent of the chief of the family, or the authority of the sovereign. Even where the baton was not removed, it was common for the sovereign to grant his permission to carry it dexter, in place of sinister. Charles VII. of France allowed John, the bastard of Orleans, for his valor against the English, to turn his sinister traverse to the dexter, with which he and his issue afterwards bruised the arms of Orleans, as dukes of Longneville. The same privilege was granted to James, earl of Murray, natural son of king James V. of Scotland, by his sister queen Mary, and be thenceforth carried the lion and tressure of Scotland thus bruised, quartered with the feudal arms of the earldom of Murray. The general practice of the milder heraldry of our own day is to substitute the gobbonated bordure for the B. B., not only in the case of the legitimate children of bastards, but of bastards themselves.