AND, first, she is a public perfon, exempt and distinct from the king; and not, like other married women, so closely connected as to have loft all legal or separate existence so long as the marriage continues. For the queen is of ability to purchafe lands, and to convey them, to make leafes, to grant copyholds, and do other acts of ownership, without the concurrence of her lord; which no other married woman can do a privilege as old as the Saxon aera . She is also capable of taking a grant from the king, which no other wife is from her husband; and in this particular fhe agrees with the Augufta, or piissima regina conjux divi imperatoris of the Roman laws; who, according to Juftinian, was equally capable of making a grant to, and receiving one from, the emperor. The queen of England hath feparate courts and officers diftinct from the king's, not only in matters of ceremony, but even of law; and her attorney and folicitor general are entitled to a place within the bar of his majefty's courts, together with the king's counfel. She may likewise fue and be fued alone, without joining her husband. She may also have a separate property in goods as well as lands, and has a right to difpofe of them by will. In fhort, fhe is in all legal proceedings looked upon as a feme fole, and not as a feme covert; as a fingle, not as a married woman f. For which the reafon given by fir Edward Coke is this: because the wifdom of the common law would not have the king (whose continual care and ftudy is for the public, and circa ardua regni) to be troubled and difquieted on account of his wife's domeftic affairs; and therefore it vefts in the queen a power of tranfacting her own concerns, without the intervention of the king, as if fhe was an unmarried woman. THE queen hath also many exemptions, and minute prerogatives. For inftance: fhe pays no toll; nor is fhe liable to any amercement in any court". But in general, un b 4 Rep. 23. e Seld. Jan. Angl. 1.42. d Cod. 5. 16. 26. e Seld. tit. hon. 1. 6. 7. f Finch. L. 86. Co. Litt. 133. g Co. Litt. 133. h Finch. L. 185. lefs lefs where the law has exprefsly declared her exempted, fhe is upon the fame footing with other fubjects; being to all intents and purposes the king's fubject, and not his equal: in like manner as, in the imperial law, "Augufta legibus foluta "non eft i” THE queen hath also fome pecuniary advantages, which form her a diftinct revenue: as, in the first place, she is entitled to an antient perquifite called queen-gold, or aurum reginae; which is a royal revenue, belonging to every queen confort during her marriage with the king, and due from every person who hath made a voluntary offering or fine to the king, amounting to ten marks or upwards, for and in confideration of any privileges, grants, licences, pardons, or other matter of royal favour conferred upon him by the king: and it is due in the proportion of one tenth part more, over and above the entire offering or fine made to the king; and becomes an actual debt of record to the queen's majesty by the mere recording of the fine *. As, if an hundred marks of filver be given to the king for liberty to take in mortmain, or to have a fair, market, park, chafe, or free-warren: there the queen is entitled to ten marks in filver, or (what was formerly an equivalent denomination) to one mark in gold, by the name of queen-gold, or aurum reginae'. But no fuch payment is due for any aids or fubfidies granted to the king in parliament or convocation; nor for fines impofed by courts on offenders, against their will; nor for voluntary prefents to the king, without any confideration moving from him to the subject; nor for any fale or contract whereby the prefent revenues or poffeffions of the crown are granted away or diminished ". THE original revenue of our antient queens, before and foon after the conquest, seems to have confifted in certain reservations or rents out of the demefne lands of the crown, i Ff. 1. 3. 31. * Pryn. Aur. Reg. 2. 1 12 Rep. 21. 4 Inft. 358. 6 m Ibid. Pryn. 6. Madox. hift. exch. 242. which which were exprefsly appropriated to her majesty, diftin& from the king. It is frequent in domefday book, after specifying the rent due to the crown, to add likewife the quantity of gold or other renders referved to the queen ". These were frequently appropriated to particular purposes; to buy wool for her majesty's use °, to purchase oil for her lamps P, or to furnish her attire from head to foot, which was frequently very coftly, as one fingle robe in the fifth year of Henry II ftood the city of London in upwards of fourfcore pounds. A practice fomewhat fimilar to that of the eastern countries, where whole cities and provinces were fpecifically affigned to purchase particular parts of the queen's apparel. And, for a farther addition to her income, this duty of queen-gold is supposed to have been originally granted; thofe matters of grace and favour, out of which it arofe, being frequently obtained from the crown by the powerful interceffion of the queen. There are traces of it's payment, though obfcure ones, in the book of domesday and in the great pipe-roll of Henry the first. In the reign of Henry the fecond the manner of collecting it appears to have been well understood, and it forms a distinct head in the antient dialogue of the exchequer written in the time of that prince, and usually attributed to Gervafe of Tilbury. From that time downwards it was regularly claimed and enjoyed by all the queen conforts of England till the death of Henry VIII; though after the acceffion of the Tudor family the collecting of it seems • Caufa coadunandi lanam reginae. ere, boc mado; bacc civitas mulieri rediDomefd. ibid. P Civitas Lundon. Pro oleo ad lamp. ad. reginae. (Mag.rot.pipp.temp. Hen. II. ibid.) 4 Vicecomes Berkefcire, xvil. pro cappa reginae. (Mag. rot. pip. 19.-22 Him. miculum praebeat, haec in cellum, baec in crines, &c. (Cic. in Verrem, lib. 3. cap. 33.) See Madox Difceptat. epiftolar, 74. Pryn. Aur. Reg. Append. 5. u lib. 2. c. 26. to to have been much neglected: and, there being no queen confort afterwards till the acceffion of James I, a period of near fixty years, it's very nature and quantity became then a matter of doubt: and, being referred by the king to the chief justices and chief baron, their report of it was fo very unfavourable", that his confort queen Anne (though the claimed it) yet never thought proper to exact it. In 1635, II Car. I, a time fertile of expedients for raifing money upon dormant precedents in our old records (of which fhip-money was a fatal instance) the king, at the petition of his queen Henrietta Maria, iffued out his writ" for levying it but afterwards purchased it of his confort at the price of ten thoufand pounds; finding it, perhaps, too trifling and troublefome to levy. And when afterwards, at the restoration, by the abolition of the military tenures, and the fines that were confequent upon them, the little that legally remained of this revenue was reduced to almost nothing at all, in vain did Mr Prynne, by a treatise which does honour to his abilities as a painful and judicious antiquary, endeavour to excite queen Catherine to revive this antiquated claim. ANOTHER antient perquifite belonging to the queen confort, mentioned by all our old writers, and therefore only, worthy notice, is this; that on the taking of a whale on the coafts, which is a royal fish, it fhall be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king's property, and the tail of it the queen's. "De flurgione obfervetur, ❝quod rex illum habebit integrum: de balena vero fufficit, fi "rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." The reafon of this whimfical divifion, as affigned by our antient records', was, to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone., BUT farther: though the queen is in all respects a subject, yet, in point of the fecurity of her life and perfon, fhe is put on the fame footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the ftatute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine the death of u Mr Prynne, with fome appearance of reason, infinuates, that their refearches were very fuperficial. (Aur. Reg. 125.) W 19 Rym Foed. 721. x Bracton. /. 3. c. 3. Britton, c. 17. Flet. 1. 1. c. 45 & 46. Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127. our our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile the queen confort, amounts to the fame high crime; as well in the perfon committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if confenting. A law of Henry the eighth made it treason alfo for any woman, who was not a virgin, to marry the king without informing him thereof: but this law was foon after repealed: it trefpafling too ftrongly, as well on natural justice, as female modefty. If however the queen be accused of any species of treason, she shall (whether confort or dowager) be tried by the peers of parliament, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Hen. VIII. THE husband of a queen regnant, as prince George of Denmark was to queen Anne, is her subject; and may be guilty of high treafon against her: but, in the instance of conjugal infidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal reftrictions. For which the reafon feems to be, that, if a queen confort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or baftardize the heirs to the crown; but no fuch danger can be confequent on the infidelity of the husband to a queen regnant. A QUEEN dowager is the widow of the king, and as fuch enjoys most of the privileges belonging to her as queen confort. But it is not high treafon to confpire her death; or to violate her chastity, for the fame reafon as was before alleged, because the fucceffion to the crown is not thereby endangered. Yet ftill, pro dignitate regali, no man can marry a queen dowager without fpecial licence from the king, on pain of forfeiting his lands and goods. This fir Edward Coke tells us was enacted in parliament in 6 Hen. VI, though the statute be not in print. But fhe, though an alien born, fhall ftill be entitled to dower after the king's demife, which no other alien is. A queen dowager, when married again to a fubject, doth not lofe her regal dignity, as peereffes dowager do their peerage when they marry commoners. For Catherine, queen dowager of Henry V, though the married a private gentleman, Owen ap Meredith ap Theo z Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21. a 2 Inft. 18. See Riley's Plac. Parl. 72. b Co. Litt. 31. dore, |