just in case you were curious, there’s one other thing you need to know about entailed property. Remember how I told you that you could suffer a common recovery to break an entail?

One giant exception: Not in Scotland. In Scotland, you were pretty much stuck with an entail.

I haven’t verified Ireland, but I suspect the same is true. Why? For other reasons, completely unrelated, I was trying to figure out what crimes worked a corruption of the blood. (Translation: There are some crimes that were so bad, that you couldn’t pass your property on to your heirs if you were convicted. Treason, most notably. In the US, forfeiture of property by corruption of the blood is basically unconstitutional).

In any event, it turns out that corruption of the blood could be worked by conviction for sodomy. The Second Earl of Castlehaven screwed his male page and was convicted. His heir lost his english title, that of Baron Audley, but held onto the Irish title.

Update to add one thing:  Keep in mind that when I use words like “convicted” in connection with felonies, the end result is not something like, “you go to jail for a few years.”  It’s the noose.  Or the axe.  Corruption of blood is very, very bad.  It’s like the uber-death penalty.  Because not only do you die–and you do–and not only is your head placed on a pike for everyone to spit on–which it might well have been–but your crime not only dishonor s you; it dishonors your entire family to the point that you can’t pass anything on to them.

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