Hey, I had a question. In Persuasion, why couldn't Mary's sons inherit Kellynch Hall? Entailed property goes to the closest male relative right? So why Mr.Elliot and not them?
It must go through the male line, children of daughters need not apply.
Sir Walter has no sons, so the entail goes back up the family tree and looks for his brother or his brother's sons. If there are none living, it goes back up and looks at his uncle and uncle's sons, and so on and so forth.
I have read about cases where daughters successfully challenged entails because there were no direct male heirs to be found, or they were super distant relations, but we know Sir Walter has a fairly close heir in Mr. Elliot (great grandson of the second Sir Walter).
General rules of entails:
The child must be an heir of his body, meaning a genetic child born within legal matrimony
It must go through the male line, so daughters are "dead branches" of the family tree
Not every estate is entailed, but people with titles (baronets and nobility) tended to have entails that passed on both the title and the primary estate or "seat" to the next male heir. Mansfield Park is likely entailed and both the baronetcy and the estate will pass to Tom
People could own land that was not part of the entail (eg. they bought it themselves) and this land could be willed to whomever they wanted. In A Woman of No Importance, a lord talks about how only the primary estate associated with his title is entailed, he can give the rest of his vast holdings to his natural son. Sir Walter also has land that is not part of the entail that he could sell but his pride prevents him from doing so
I hope that helps!
(Also, I read about one case where a member of the nobility accepted his wife's natural child because he had 3 or 4 sons and figured it would be fine. All his genetic sons died and the natural child got the title, but it was too late to disavow him by then!)
