CORRUPTION of Blood, in Law, one of the consequences of an attainer. It goes both upwards and downwards; so that an attainted person can neither inherit lands or other hereditaments from his ancestors, nor retain those he is already in possession of, or transmit them by descent to any heir; but the same escheat to the lord of the fee, subject to the king's superior right of forfeiture; and the person attainted also obstructs all descents to his posterity, wherever they are obliged to derive a title through him to a remoter ancestor.
This is one of those notions which our laws have adopted from the feudal constitutions, at the time of the Norman conquest; as appears from its being unknown in those tenures which are indisputably Saxon, as gavelkind, in which, though by treason, according to the ancient Saxon laws, the land is forfeited to the king, yet no corruption of blood, no impediment of descents, ensues, and, on judgment of mere felony, no escheat accrues to the lord. But by the law of England, derived as above, a man's blood is so universally corrupted by attainer, that his sons can neither inherit to him nor to any other ancestor, at least on the part of their attainted father.
This corruption of blood cannot be absolutely removed
except by authority of parliament. The king may excuse the public punishment of an offender, but he cannot abolish the private right which has accrued, or may accrue, to individuals as a consequence of the criminal's attainer. He may remit a forfeiture in which the interest of the crown is alone concerned, but he cannot wipe away the corruption of blood; for in it a third person has an interest, namely, the lord who claims by escheat. If, therefore, a man has a son, and is attainted, and afterwards pardoned by the king, this son can never inherit to his father, or father's ancestors; because his paternal blood, being once thoroughly corrupted by his father's attainer, must ever continue so. But if the son had been born after the pardon, he might have inherited; because, by the pardon, the father is made a new man, and may convey inheritable blood to the children born after the remission.