Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/268

 252 punihment for the offence; and does not at all relate to the feodal ytem, nor is the conequence of any igniory or lordhip paramount : but, being a prerogative veted in the crown, was neither upereded nor diminihed by the introduction of the Norman tenures; a fruit and conequence of which echeat mut undoubtedly be reckoned. Echeat therefore operates in ubordination to this more antient and uperior law of forfeiture.

doctrine of echeat upon attainder, taken ingly, is this: that the blood of the tenant, by the commiion of any felony, (under which denomination all treaons were formerly comprized ) is corrupted and tained, and the original donation of the feud is thereby determined, it being always granted to the vaal on the implied condition of dum bene e geerit. Upon the thorough demontration of which guilt, by legal attainder, the feodal covenant and mutual bond of fealty are held to be broken, the etate intantly falls back from the offender to the lord of the fee, and the inheritable quality of his blood is extinguihed and blotted out for ever. In this ituation the law of feodal echeat was brought into England at the conquet; and in general uperadded to the antient law of forfeiture. In conequence of which corruption and extinction of hereditary blood, the land of all felons would immediately invet in the lord, but that the uperior law of forfeiture intervenes, and intercepts it in it's paage; in cae of treaon, forever; in cae of other felony, for only a year and a day, after which time it goes to the lord in a regular coure of echeat, as it would have done to the heir of the felon in cae the feodal tenures had never been introduced. And that this is the true operation and genuine hitory of echeats will mot evidently appear from this incident to gavelkind lands, (which eem to be the old Saxon tenure) that they are in no cae ubject to echeat for felony, though they are liable to forfeiture for treaon. Rh