ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the crime of bastardy in London by focusing on one particular group of offenders: the women who charged military men with being the fathers of their illegitimate infants. It offers evidence that a similar practice existed among the military couples in early eighteenth-century Westminster and Chelsea. The investigation of bastardy among military couples offers some fascinating insights about English women and crime more broadly. First, when the law viewed bastard-bearers as victims, it actually offered them more power and authority than it did victims of another sexual crime: rape. The image of the malicious female prosecutor pervades both rape and bastardy cases, and has been discredited by several scholars for the former category. The taint of bastardy hung closely around cultural representations of romance with military men. A popular play said that military recruiting parties left as many bastards behind 'as they carried out' in new recruits.
