Since Temp and others have remarked that some bastards are - well - utter bastards, let's see can we nominate ten of these as well (women of course included in the technical definition of the term).

I'll kick it off with this young all-American bullet-headed son-of-a-gun - well, son of someone anyway. His "sister" proved to be his mother and his father, depending on whether you believe his birth cerificate or his mother's later claim, was either an Air Force vet or a merchant sailor. Either way this rather confused beginning to life, and I assume to no small degree the obvious shame that his grandparents felt about his mother's ambiguity, combined to produce a rather confused and morally ambiguous little boy. His highschool comrades described him as "popular", though they didn't know what we now know from the lad himself about those same teenage years. Rooting through neighbours' bins in search of pornography mightn't be an automatic pointer to a depraved existence, but in this case alas it was indeed that, and worse besides.

30 admitted homicides later (suspected to be closer to 35), and untold agonies inflicted on hundreds of relations and loved ones of these victims across the breadth of the USA, Ted Bundy - to the dismay of the many supporters he had actually managed to accrue during his lengthy trials - was executed on January 24th 1989.

I think James Stewart, Earl of Moray, later Regent of Scotland, was a bad bastard, but that judgement, like everything else in history, is open to dispute.

James was the illegitimate son of James V of Scotland and his favourite mistress (whom he very nearly married), Lady Margaret Erskine.

No time now to explain, but hopefully back later. Was James an utter bastard in his dealings with Mary, Queen of Scots, or was he simply an astute and able politician driven to desperate measures by the idiocy of his young half-sister?

Eva Peron?

I'm not too certain whether she belongs on this thread or the greatest bastard thread.

I've decided to put her here.


PS Won't witter on about James Stewart; I think we all need a break from the 16th century and its various celebrities (but he was a nasty piece of work).

Edited out as no longer relevant.