Moors, Armenians, Persians and others,” to settle and traffic in the city, as it became in 1606. Declared free and neutral in 1691, Leghorn was permanently invested with these privileges by the Quadruple Alliance in 1718; but in 1796 Napoleon seized all the hostile vessels in its port. It ceased to be a free city by the law of 1867. (T. As.)
LEGION (Lat. legio), in early Rome, the levy of citizens
marching out en masse to war, like the citizen-army of any other
primitive state. As Rome came to need more than one army
at once and warfare grew more complex, legio came to denote
a unit of 4000-6000 heavy infantry (including, however, at first
some light infantry and at various times a handful of cavalry)
who were by political status Roman citizens and were distinct
from the “allies,” auxilia, and other troops of the second class.
The legionaries were regarded as the best and most characteristic
Roman soldiers, the most trustworthy and truly Roman;
they enjoyed better pay and conditions of service than the
“auxiliaries.” In A.D. 14 (death of Augustus) there were 25
such legions: later, the number was slightly increased; finally
about A.D. 290 Diocletian reduced the size and greatly increased
the number of the legions. Throughout, the dominant features
of the legions were heavy infantry and Roman citizenship.
They lost their importance when the Barbarian invasions altered
the character of ancient warfare and made cavalry a more
important arm than infantry, in the late 3rd and 4th centuries
A.D. In the middle ages the word “legion” seems not to have
been used as a technical term. In modern times it has been
employed for organizations of an unusual or exceptional character,
such as a corps of foreign volunteers or mercenaries. See
further Roman Army. (F. J. H.)
The term legion has been used to designate regiments or corps of all arms in modern times, perhaps the earliest example of this being the Provincial Legions formed in France by Francis I. (see Infantry). Napoleon, in accordance with this precedent, employed the word to designate the second-line formations which he maintained in France and which supplied the Grande Armée with drafts. The term “Foreign Legion” is often used for irregular volunteer corps of foreign sympathizers raised by states at war, often by smaller states fighting for independence. Unlike most foreign legions the “British Legion” which, raised in Great Britain and commanded by Sir de Lacy Evans (q.v.), fought in the Carlist wars, was a regularly enlisted and paid force. The term “foreign legion” is colloquially but incorrectly applied to-day to the Régiments étrangers in the French service, which are composed of adventurous spirits of all nationalities and have been employed in many arduous colonial campaigns.
The most famous of the corps that have borne the name of legion in modern times was the King’s German Legion (see Beamish’s history of the corps). The electorate of Hanover being in 1805 threatened by the French, and no effective resistance being considered possible, the British government wished to take the greater part of the Hanoverian army into its service. But the acceptance by the Hanoverian government of this offer was delayed until too late, and it was only after the French had entered the country and the army as a unit had been disbanded that the formation of the “King’s German Regiment,” as it was at first called, was begun in England. This enlisted not only ex-Hanoverian soldiers, but other Germans as well, as individuals. Lieut.-Colonel von der Decken and Major Colin Halkett were the officers entrusted with the formation of the new corps, which in January 1805 had become a corps of all arms with the title of King’s German Legion. It then consisted of a dragoon and a hussar regiment, five batteries, two light and four line battalions and an engineer section, all these being afterwards increased. Its services included the abortive German expedition of November 1805, the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807, the minor sieges and combats in Sicily 1808–14, the Walcheren expedition of 1809, the expedition to Sweden under Sir John Moore in 1808, and the campaign of 1813 in north Germany. But its title to fame is its part in the Peninsular War, in which from first to last it was an acknowledged corps d’élite—its cavalry especially, whose services both on reconnaissance and in battle were of the highest value. The exploit of the two dragoon regiments of the Legion at Garcia Hernandez after the battle of Salamanca, where they charged and broke up two French infantry squares and captured some 1400 prisoners, is one of the most notable incidents in the history of the cavalry arm (see Sir E. Wood’s Achievements of Cavalry). A general officer of the Legion, Charles Alten (q.v.), commanded the British Light Division in the latter part of the war. It should be said that the Legion was rarely engaged as a unit. It was considered rather as a small army of the British type, most of which served abroad by regiments and battalions while a small portion and depot units were at home, the total numbers under arms being about 25,000. In 1815 the period of service of the corps had almost expired when Napoleon returned from Elba, but its members voluntarily offered to prolong their service. It lost heavily at Waterloo, in which Baring’s battalion of the light infantry distinguished itself by its gallant defence of La Haye Sainte. The strength of the Legion at the time of its disbandment was 1100 officers and 23,500 men. A short-lived “King’s German Legion” was raised by the British government for service in the Crimean War. Certain Hanoverian regiments of the German army to-day represent the units of the Legion and carry Peninsular battle-honours on their standards and colours.
LEGITIM, or Bairn’s Part, in Scots law, the legal share of the movable property of a father due on his death to his children. If a father dies leaving a widow and children, the movable property is divided into three equal parts; one-third part is divided equally among all the children who survive, although they may be of different marriages (the issue of predeceased children do not share); another third goes to the widow as her jus relictae, and the remaining third, called “dead’s part,” may be disposed of by the father by will as he pleases. If the father die intestate the dead’s part goes to the children as next of kin. Should the father leave no widow, one-half of the movable estate is legitim and one-half dead’s part. In claiming legitim, however, credit must be given for any advance made by the father out of his movable estate during his lifetime.
LEGITIMACY, and LEGITIMATION, the status derived by individuals in consequence of being born in legal wedlock, and the means by which the same status is given to persons not so born. Under the Roman or civil law a child born before the marriage of the parents was made legitimate by their subsequent marriage. This method of legitimation was accepted by the canon law, by the legal systems of the continent of Europe, of Scotland and of some of the states of the United States. The early Germanic codes, however, did not recognize such legitimation, nor among the Anglo-Saxons had the natural-born child any rights of inheritance, or possibly any right other than that of protection, even when acknowledged by its father. The principle of the civil and canon law was at one time advocated by the clergy of England, but was summarily rejected by the barons at the parliament of Merton in 1236, when they replied Nolumus leges Angliae mutare.
English law takes account solely of the fact that marriage precedes the birth of the child; at whatever period the birth happens after the marriage, the offspring is prima facie legitimate. The presumption of law is always in favour of the legitimacy of the child of a married woman, and at one time it was so strong that Sir Edward Coke held that “if the husband be within the four seas, i.e. within the jurisdiction of the king of England, and the wife hath issue, no proof shall be admitted to prove the child a bastard unless the husband hath an apparent impossibility of procreation.” It is now settled, however, that the presumption of legitimacy may be rebutted by evidence showing non-access on the part of the husband, or any other circumstance showing that the husband could not in the course of nature have been the father of his wife’s child. If the husband had access, or the access be not clearly negatived, even though others at the same time were carrying on an illicit intercourse with the wife, a child born under such circumstances is legitimate. If the husband had access intercourse must be presumed, unless there is irresistible evidence to the contrary. Neither husband or wife will be permitted to prove the non-access directly or indirectly. Children born after a divorce a mensa et thoro will, however, be presumed to be bastards unless access be proved. A child born so long after the death of a husband that he could not in the ordinary course of nature have been the father is illegitimate. The period of gestation is presumed to be about nine calendar months; and if there were any circumstances from which an unusually long or short period of gestation could be inferred, special medical testimony would be required.
A marriage between persons within the prohibited degrees of affinity was before 1835 not void, but only voidable, and the ecclesiastical courts were restrained from bastardizing the issue after the death of either of the parents. Lord
