In English

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

, attainder was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious

capital crime Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

(

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and

hereditary titles Hereditary titles, in a general sense, are nobility titles, positions or styles that are hereditary and thus tend or are bound to remain in particular families. Though both monarchs and nobles usually inherit their titles, the mechanisms often d ...

, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's

heirs Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Official ...

. Anyone condemned of capital crimes could be attainted. Attainder by confession resulted from a guilty plea at the bar before judges or before the

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

. Attainder by verdict resulted from conviction by jury. Attainder by process resulted from a legislative act

outlaw An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. ...

ing a fugitive (a

bill of attainder A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder, writ of attainder, or bill of pains and penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and providing for a punishment, often without a ...

). The last form is obsolete in England (and prohibited in the United States), and the other forms have been abolished.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

English monarchs used acts of attainder to deprive nobles of their lands and often their lives. Once attainted, the descendants of the noble could no longer inherit their lands or income. Attainder essentially amounted to the legal death of the attainted's family. Monarchs typically used attainders against political enemies and those who posed potential threats to the king's position and security. The attainder eliminated any advantage the noble would have in a court of law; nobles were exempt from many of the techniques used to try

commoners A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

, including

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

. Likewise, in many cases of attainder, the king could coerce the parliament into approving the attainder and there would be a lower or non-existent burden of proof (evidence) than there would be in court. Prior to the

Tudors The House of Tudor ( ) was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of Engl ...

, most rulers reversed their attainders in return for promises of loyalty. For example, Henry VI reversed all 21 attainders,

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

86 of 120, and

Richard III Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Boswor ...

99 of 100. However, this changed with Henry VII, as described below. Rulers who used attainder include: *

Margaret of Anjou Margaret of Anjou (; 23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was Queen of England by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. Through marriage, she was also nominally Queen of France from 1445 to 1453. Born in the ...

: her attainder of

Richard of York Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (21 September 1411 – 30 December 1460), also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantag ...

led him to invade England and attempt to seize the throne after the Battle of Northampton, which led to the penultimate phases of the

War of the Roses The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...

. *

: used attainder after killing his brother,

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (21 October 144918 February 1478), was the sixth child and third surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He pla ...

for high treason. * Henry VII: initially attainted men after he ascended the throne. He used the threat of attainder as a means to keep the few nobles who survived the

in line. Often, however, he would penalize them with exorbitant fees and fines, or force them to have bonds which would be forfeit unless they exhibited good behaviour (his goal was to reduce the number of nobles with private armies of

retainers Retainer may refer to: * Retainer (orthodontics), devices for teeth * RFA ''Retainer'' (A329), a ship * Retainers in early China, a social group in early China Employment * Retainer agreement, a contract in which an employer pays in advance for ...

). Henry VII attainted 138 men, of whom he reversed only 46 attainders, and some of these were conditional. *

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

: compelled parliament to attaint many nobles during his lifetime, including magnates with major land holdings, and any magnates whom he came to mistrust. Examples include: **

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the Wives of Henry VIII, second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading ...

: Before her execution, she was stripped of her title, and her marriage was

annulled Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almo ...

. **

Catherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from July 1540 until November 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a first cousin to Anne Boleyn (the second ...

: Henry VIII had an Act of Attainder passed against Catherine Howard, which made it

for a woman with an

unchaste Chastity, also known as purity, is a virtue related to temperance. Someone who is ''chaste'' refrains from sexual activity that is considered immoral or from any sexual activity, according to their state of life. In some contexts, for example ...

reputation to marry the king. **

Edward Stafford Edward Stafford may refer to: People * Edward Stafford, 2nd Earl of Wiltshire (1470–1498) *Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1478–1521), executed for treason * Edward Stafford, 3rd Baron Stafford (1535–1603) *Sir Edward Stafford (dipl ...

, Duke of Buckingham, one of the wealthiest magnates in England, whom Henry had executed on flimsy charges in 1521. **

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury (14 August 1473 – 27 May 1541), was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (a brother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III) and his wife Isabel Neville. As a result of M ...

: One of the last surviving noble Plantagenets of senior line. **

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG (1516/1517–19 January 1547) was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and was the last known person to have been executed at the insistence of King ...

: The poet son of

Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, (10 March 1473 – 25 August 1554) was an English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beh ...

. **

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

: former Principal Secretary to Henry VIII, who was arrested at a Privy Council meeting in 1540, and charged with

, executed on the grounds of an Attainder *

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

: subsequent to the failed

impeachment Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In Eur ...

of his former

Lord Deputy of Ireland The Lord Deputy was the representative of the monarch and head of the Irish executive (government), executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and then the Kingdom of Ireland. He deputised prior to 1523 for the Viceroy of Ireland ...

, Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, was attainted during the political crisis of 1640 -1641. The Bill of Attainder, having passed the depleted

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

and

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

, was enacted by

as a concession to his political opponents. During his reign, the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an Parliament of England, English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened f ...

of 1641 passed an Act of Attainder against

William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I of England, Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Caroline era#Religion, Charles I's religious re ...

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

who was

beheaded Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...

in 1645. * Charles II: Although deceased by the time of the Restoration, the

regicides Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...

John Bradshaw,

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

Henry Ireton Henry Ireton (baptised 3 November 1611; died 26 November 1651) was an English general in the Parliamentarian army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and a son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. He died of disease outside Limerick in November 165 ...

and

Thomas Pride Thomas Pride, 1606/1608 to 23 October 1658, was a brewer and political activist from Somerset who fought for Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He is best known for being one of the regicides of Charles I, and the instigator o ...

were served with a Bill of Attainder on 15 May 1660 backdated to 1 January 1649 ( NS). *

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily () * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg (1817–1890) N ...

: ** James, III and VIII, the Old Pretender, 1702 ** Lewis Crichton, 4th Viscount Frendraught, in 1690 * George II, following the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of t ...

: **

Attainder of Earl of Kellie and Others Act 1745 In English criminal law, attainder was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary titles, but t ...

Once attainted, nobles were considered commoners, and as such, could be subjected to the same treatments, including

and methods of

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

. For example, commoners could be

burned at the stake Death by burning is an list of execution methods, execution, murder, or suicide method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a puni ...

, whereas nobles could not. Often, nobles would refer to the act of being attainted (and then executed) as the person's "destruction".

Passage in Parliament

In the

Westminster system The Westminster system, or Westminster model, is a type of parliamentary system, parliamentary government that incorporates a series of Parliamentary procedure, procedures for operating a legislature, first developed in England. Key aspects of ...

, a

was a bill passed by

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

to attaint persons who were accused of

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its d ...

, or, in rare cases, a lesser crime. A person attainted need not have been convicted of treason in a court of law; one use of the attainder process was a method of declaring a person a

fugitive A fugitive or runaway is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...

. Another was applying collateral consequences of criminal conviction (especially property forfeiture) where the suspects had died and hence could not stand trial. A rumour circulated that a bill of attainder against

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

was raised in 1774 following his authorship of ''

A Summary View of the Rights of British America ''A Summary View of the Rights of British America'' was a tract written by Thomas Jefferson in 1774, before the United States Declaration of Independence, in which he laid out for delegates to the First Continental Congress a set of grievances ...

''. The last bill of attainder passed in Britain was against

Lord Edward FitzGerald Lord Edward FitzGerald (15 October 1763 – 4 June 1798) was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary proponent of Irish independence from Britain. He abandoned his prospects as a distinguished veteran of British service in the American War of Ind ...

, after his death in 1798; that provided for forfeiture of his estate. Attainders by confession, verdict and process were abolished in the United Kingdom by the

Forfeiture Act 1870 The Forfeiture Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 23) or the Abolition of Forfeiture Act 1870 or the Felony Act 1870 is a British act of Parliament that abolished the automatic forfeiture of goods and land as a punishment for treason and felony. It d ...

(33 & 34 Vict., c.23).

Article One of the United States Constitution Article One of the Constitution of the United States establishes the legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consist ...

provides that no bill of attainder or

ex post facto law An ''ex post facto'' law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences or status of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were ...

shall be passed by Congress, and forbids states from passing them.

Corruption of blood

Corruption of blood is one of the consequences of attainder. The descendants of an attainted person could not inherit either from the attainted person (whose property had been forfeited by the attainder) or through their other relatives from them. For example, if a person executed for a crime leaves innocent children, the property of the criminal is forfeited to the crown and will not pass to the children. If the criminal's innocent parent outlives their child, the property inherited by the parent from the criminal cannot be inherited by the criminal's children either; instead, it will be distributed among other family members. The

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

prohibits corruption of blood as a punishment for treason,U.S. Constitution, Art. III, Sec. 3, ¶ 2. (specifically, "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted") and when

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

passed the first federal crime bill in 1790, it prohibited corruption of blood as a punishment for any federal crime. In

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

, corruption of blood was abolished by the Corruption of Blood Act 1814.

Examples

Earl of Strafford Earl of Strafford is a title that has been created three times in English and British history. The first creation was in the Peerage of England in January 1640 for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the 1st Viscount Wentworth, the clo ...

John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1593 – 14 May 1631; also spelled ''Mervin, Touchet''), was an English nobleman who was convicted of rape and sodomy and subsequently executed. A son of George Tuchet, 1st Earl of Castlehaven and 11th ...

Parker Wickham Parker Wickham (February 28, 1727–May 22, 1785) was a Loyalist (American Revolution), Loyalist politician who was banished from the State of New York under dubious circumstances. Wickham was the oldest son of Joseph Wickham and Abigail Parker ...

Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of Arundel, 9th Earl of Surrey (1346 – 21 September 1397) was an English medieval nobleman and military commander. Lineage Born in 1346, he was the son of Richard Fitzalan, 3rd Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancast ...

Earl of Perth Earl of Perth is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1605 for James Drummond, 4th Lord Drummond. The Drummond family claim descent from Maurice, son of George, a younger son of King Andrew I of Hungary. Maurice arrived in Sc ...

Viscount Strathallan {{Use dmy dates, date=November 2019 The title of Lord Maderty was created in 1609 for James Drummond, a younger son of the 2nd Lord Drummond of Cargill. The titles of Viscount Strathallan and Lord Drummond of Cromlix were created in 1686 for Willi ...

Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (25 February 1475 – 28 November 1499) was the son of Isabel Neville and George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and a potential claimant to the English throne during the reigns of both his uncle, Rich ...

References

External links

* {{cite EB9 , wstitle= Attainder , volume= III , page=52 , short=1 Public law Legal history of England English legal terminology