I've heard that men were able to take care of their favorite illicitly- begotten children, but how did they do it when the laws gave bastards no rights of inheritance? An interesting case is where Sir Thomas Martin eventually married the children's mother and allotted them their due inheritances, but a kinsman successfully overturned the inheritances in court on the grounds that they were born bastards regardless of the father eventually marrying the mother. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/martin-william Are you familiar with cases of bastards inheriting? How did they do it?