The original revenue of the queen consort. regina; which is a royal revenue, belonging to every queen consort 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 consideration of any privileges, grants, licences, pardons, or other matters 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 silver be given to the king for liberty to take in mortmain, or to have a fair, market, park, chase, or free-warren: there the queen is entitled to ten marks in silver, or (what was formerly an equivalent denomination) to one mark in gold, by the name of queen-gold, or aurum reginæ. But no such payment is due for any aids or subsidies granted to the king in parliament or convocation; nor for fines imposed by courts on offenders, against their will; nor for voluntary presents to the king, without any consideration moving from him to the subject; nor for any sale or contract whereby the present revenues or possessions of the crown are granted away or diminished." The original revenue of our ancient queens, before and soon after the conquest, seems to have consisted in certain [222] reservations or rents out of the demesne lands of the crown, which were expressly appropriated to her majesty, distinct from the king. It is frequent in domesday book, after specifying the rent due to the crown, to add likewise the quantity of gold or other renders reserved to the queen. These were frequently appropriated to particular purposes; to buy wool for her majesty's use,P to purchase oil for her lamps, or to furnish her attire from head to foot," which was fre Pryn. Aur. Reg. 2. m 12 Rep. 21. 4 Inst. 358. Ibid. Pryn. 6. Madox. Hist. Bedefordscire Maner. Lestone (regina) in maner. præsentaret ei xviii oras denar. ut esset ipsa lato animo. Pryn. Append. to Aur. Reg. 2.3. P Causa coadunandi lanam reginæ. Domesd. ibid. 4 Civitas Lundon. Pro oleo ad lamp. ad. reginæ. (Mag. rott. pipp. temp. Hen. II. ibid.) Vicecomes Berkescire, xvi l. pro. quently very costly, as one single robe in the fifth year of Henry II. stood the city of London in upwards of four-score pounds. A practice somewhat similar to that of the eastern countries, where whole cities and provinces were specifically assigned to purchase particular parts of the queen's apparel.t And, for a farther addition to her income, this duty of queengold is supposed to have been originally granted; those matters of grace and favour, out of which it arose, being frequently obtained from the crown by the powerful intercession of the queen. There are traces of its payment, though obscure ones, in the book of domesday and in the great pipe-roll of Henry the first." In the reign of Henry the second the manner of collecting it appears to have been well understood, and it forms a distinct head in the ancient dialogue of the exchequer written in the time of that prince, and usually attributed to Gervase of Tilbury. From that time downwards it was regularly claimed and enjoyed by all the queen consorts of England till the death of Henry VIII.; though after the accession of the Tudor family the collecting of it seems to have been much neglected: and, there being no queen consort afterwards till [223] the accession of James I., a period of near sixty years, its 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 so very unfavourable,w that his consort queen Anne (though she claimed it) yet never thought proper to exact it. In 1635, 11 Car. I., a time fertile of expedients for raising money upon dormant precedents in our old records (of which ship-money was a fatal instance) the king, at the petition of his queen Henrietta Maria, issued out his writ* for levying it but cappa regina. (Mag. rott. pipp. 19.22 Hen. II. ibid.) Civitas Lund. cordubanario reginæ xx s. (Mag. rot. 2 Hen. II. Madox Hist. Exch. 419.) Pro roba ad opus reginæ, quater xx l. & vi s. viii d. (Mag. rot. 5 Hen. II. ibid. 250.) Solere aiunt barbaros reges Persarum ac Syrorum-uxoribus civitates attribuere, hoc mado; hæc civitas mulieri redimiculum præbeat, hæc in col lum, hæc in crines, &c. (Cic. in Ver- "See Madox Disceptat, epistolar. w Mr. Prynne, with some appear- * 19 Rym. Foed. 721. Her right to the whale. As to the security of life she is on a afterwards purchased it of his consort at the price of ten thousand pounds; finding it, perhaps, too trifling and troublesome to levy. And when afterwards, at the Restoration, by the abolition of the military tenures, and the fines that were consequent 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. 66 Another ancient perquisite belonging to the queen consort, mentioned by all our old writers, and therefore only worthy notice, is this; that on the taking of a whale on the coasts, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king's property, and the tail of it the queen's. "De sturgione observetur, quod rex illum habebit integrum: de balena vero sufficit, "si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." The reason of this whimsical division, as assigned by our ancient records,z was, to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone. And the reason, as Mr. Christian has observed, is more whimsical than the division, for the whalebone lies entirely in the head. But farther though the queen is in all respects a subject, and person yet, in point of the security of her life and person, she par with the is put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine [224] the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile the queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of Henry the eighth made it treason also for any woman, who was not a virgin, to marry the king without informing him thereof: but this law was soon after repealed: it trespassing too strongly, as well on natural justice, as female modesty. If, however, the queen be accused of any species of treason, she shall (whether consort or dowager) be tried by the peers of parliament, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Hen. VIII., and queen Caroline in the 1 George IV. king, y Bracton. 1.3. c. 3. Britton, c. 17. Flet. l. 1. c. 45 & 46. Pryn Aur. Reg. 127. a Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21. Mr. Hargrave, n. to Co. Litt. 133, says that no such stat. can be found. a queen reg The husband of a queen regnant, as prince George of Husband of Denmark was to queen Anne, is her subject; and may be nant. guilty of high treason against her: but, in the instance of conjugal infidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions. For which the reason seems to be, that, if a queen consort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or bastardize the heirs to the crown; but no such danger can be consequent on the infidelity of the husband to a queen regnant. ager. A queen dowager is the widow of the king, and as such Queen dowenjoys most of the privileges belonging to her as queen consort. But it is not high treason to conspire her death; or to violate her chastity, for the same reason as was before alleged, because the succession to the crown is not thereby endangered. Yet still, pro dignitate regali, no man can marry a queen dowager without special licence from the king, on pain of forfeiting his lands and goods. This, sir Edward Cokeb tells us, was enacted in parliament in 6 Hen. VI., though the statute be not in print. But she, though an alien born, shall still be entitled to dower after the king's demise, which no other alien is. A queen dowager, when married again to a subject, doth not lose hier regal dignity, as peeresses dowager do their peerage when they marry commoners. For Catherine, queen dowager of Henry V., though she married a private gentleman, Owen ap Meredith ap Theodore, commonly called Owen Tudor; [225] yet, by the name of Katherine queen of England, maintained an action against the bishop of Carlisle. And so, the queen dowager of Navarre marrying with Edmond earl of Lancaster, brother to king Edward the first, maintained an action of dower (after the death of her second husband) by the name of queen of Navarre.d The prince of Wales, or heir apparent to the crown, and The prince also his royal consort, and the princess royal, or eldest daughter of the king, are likewise peculiarly regarded by the laws. For, by statute 25 Edw. III., to compass or conspire the death of the former, or to violate the chastity The rest of the royal family. of either of the latter, are as much high treason as to conspire the death of the king, or violate the chastity of the queen. And this upon the same reason, as was before given ; because the prince of Wales is next in succession to the crown, and to violate his wife might taint the blood royal with bastardy: and the eldest daughter of the king for the time being is also alone inheritable to the crown, on failure of issue male, and therefore more respected by the laws than any of her younger sisters; insomuch that upon this, united with other (feodal) principles, while our military tenures were in force, the king might levy an aid for marrying his eldest daughter, and her only. The heir apparent to the crown is usually made prince of Wales and earl of Chester, by special creation, and investiture; but, being the king's eldest son, he is by inheritance duke of Cornwall, without any new creation. The rest of the royal family may be considered in two different lights, according to the different senses in which the term, royal family is used. The larger sense includes all those, who are by any possibility inheritable to the crown. Such, before the Revolution, were all the descendants of William the Conqueror; who had branched into an amazing extent, by intermarriages with the ancient nobility. Since the Revolution and Act of Settlement, it means the protestant issue of the princess Sophia; now comparatively few in number, but which in process of time may possibly be as [226] largely diffused. The more confined sense includes only those, who are within a certain degree of propinquity to the reigning prince, and to whom therefore the law pays an extraordinary regard and respect: but, after that degree is past, they fall into the rank of ordinary subjects, and are seldom considered any farther, unless called to the succession upon failure of the nearer lines. For, though collateral consanguinity is regarded indefinitely, with respect to inheritance or succession, yet it is and can only be regarded within some certain limits in any other respect, by the natural constitution of things and the dictates of positive law.f 8 Rep. 1. Seld. tit. of Hon. 2.5. Lomax v. Holmden, 1 Ves. sen. 294. See Essay on Collateral Consan guinity, in Law-tracts, 4to. Oxon, 1771. |