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Mind your language

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the shifting meaning of ‘illegitimate’

‘Illegitimate’ and ‘legitimate’ have done service in English these six centuries

16 April 2016

9:00 AM

16 April 2016

9:00 AM

‘The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary,’ Charles Moore told us last weekend. As a bonus in this Trollopean tale we learnt that, by Church of England canon law, ‘men born illegitimately were for centuries barred from becoming archbishops’, or indeed bishops.

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