Hi: A Scottish colleague provided this comment: At 10:23 am +0100 12/4/05, Lindsay Marshall wrote: >The expression rings a vague bell with me, but I don't know it's origin. >However I think that it is *very* unlikely that you could actually >legitimise children whis way (particularly in the Victorian era) - it >would need to be written into law if this were the case and therefore >should be easy to find. > >Here's a quote from Kipling : "I acknowledged him as my feudatory under >the skirt of my protection", so I wonder if the usage might be something >to do with accepting children from the husband's previous marriage >rather than legitimising her children? cheers Brian Randell -- School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/