I was curious, if a king sires a bastard but then his wife dies and he marries the mother, is the bastard still considered a bastard?
If he doesn't have the child legitimized or even acknowledged, does that change without him saying anything?
I'm assuming France, England or the Holy Roman Empire but I'm open to other areas as well.
Repost because this was ignored last time.
In Lichtenstein, a bastard child of a princess is legitimized if she later marries the father. Source: the Constitution of the Princely House of Lichtenstein.
Fun fact: at that point, the Reigning Prince gets to decide whether or not the child will belong to the Princely House (and thus be part of the line of succession).
"Where a child born out of wedlock to a prince is rendered legitimate by a subsequent marriage, the Reigning Prince shall decide whether or not such legitimized child belongs to the Princely House."
No. Bastard status exists from the moment the child is born without having been the product of a marriage.