Catelyn puts family above everything. Her typical sympathies and charity when there is no conflicting family motive would have impelled her to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. The fact that she doesn't hold it against Ned but lashes out at Jon suggests a direct enmity rather than resenting her husband's generosity. Such treatment (Ned's, I mean) of bastards is hardly uncommon in the Seven Kingdoms.



Ned might best be called decent and honorable. He is not rigid in the least. According to his moral code, the right thing to do with Cersei would be to honor his friend, stop his enemy and obey the laws of his kingdom. Cersei had no claim to what he was doing aside from chauvanistic sentimentality. The moral thing, the lawful thing, the ethical thing (as pertains to his office) and the good-friend thing to do is to arrest Cersei and report her crimes to Robert. There is absolutely no moral justification for what Ned did, even by the code of the North as alluded to or inferred by other examples (i.e. Robb's claim that Harrion Karstark was bound to be his enemy, no matter how justified Robb's actions or however beneficial to Harrion personally). Ned's tragic flaw is not nobility or an excess of goodness, it is sentimentality and failure to do what was right. He couldn't bear to oppose his friend when said friend was in the wrong again, so he betrayed his king, his friend, his country and his duty in the hope that Cersei would solve the problem (Robert having no compunctions about dead kids) for him. Ned isn't TOO moral, he was weak and failed to be moral enough.