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, [*220] 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 (k). 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 (1). 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 (m). Where not due. Queen's original revenue. The original revenue of our ancient queens, before and soon after the conquest, seems to have consisted in certain 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 (n). These were frequently appropriated to parti (k) Pryn. Aur. Reg. 2. (1) 12 Rep. 21. 4 Inst. 358. Exch. 242. (n) Bedefordscire. Maner. Lestone redd. per annum xxii lib. &c.; ad opus reginæ ii uncias auri.-Herefordscire. In Lene, &c. consuetud. ut præpositus manerii veniente domina sua (regina) in maner. præsentaret ei xviii oras denar. ut esset ipsa læto animo. Pryn. Append. to Aur. Reg. 2, 3. cular purposes; to buy wool for her majesty's use (o), to purchase oil for her lamps (p), or to furnish her attire from head to foot (q), which was frequently very costly, as one single robe in the fifth year of Henry II. *stood the city of [221] London in upwards of fourscore pounds (r). 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 (s). And, Queen gold. for a farther addition to her income, this duty of queen-gold 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 (t). In the reign of Henry the The means of second the manner of collecting it appears to have been collecting it. well understood, and it forms a distinct head in the ancient dialogue of the exchequer (u), 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 the accession of James I., a period of near sixty years, its (p) Civitas Lundon. Pro oleo ad lumpad. regina. (Mag. rot. pip. temp. Hen. II. ibid.) (9) Vicecomes Berkescire, ævil. pro cappa reginæ. (Mag. rot. pip. 19.22 Hen. II. ibid.) Civitas Lund. cordubanario regina az s. (Mag.rot. 2 Hen. II. Madox, Hist. Exch. 419.) (r) Pro roba ad opus regina, quater xx l. et vi s. viii. d. (Mag, rot. 5 Hen. II. ibid. 250.) (s) Solere aiunt barbaros reges Persiarum ac Syrorum-uxoribus civitates attribuere, hoc modo; hæc civitas mu- (t) See Madox, Disceptat. Epistolar. its nature and ful. Charles I. is Temp. Jac. I. very nature and quantity became then a matter of doubt; quantity doubt- and, being referred by the king to the chief justices and chief baron, their report of it was so very unfavourable (u), 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 (v) for levying it but 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 resto[*222 ] ration, 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 Mr. Prynne's does honour to his abilities as a painful and judicious antiquary, endeavour to excite Queen Catherine to revive this antiquated claim (6). sued a writ for levying it. endeavours to revive it. Other perqui sites: whale's tail. Another ancient perquisite belonging to the queen consort, mentioned by all our old writers (w), 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”(x). The reason of this whimsical division, as assigned by our (u) Mr. Prynne, with some ap. pearance of reason, insinuates that their researches were very superficial. (Aur. Reg. 125.) (v) 19 Rym. Fœd. 721. c. 17. Flet. l. 1, c. 45 et 46. (x) "Of the sturgeon, let it be observed, that the king have the whole for himself. Of the whale, it sufficeth that his majesty have the head, and (w) Bracton, 1. 3, c. 3. Britton, the queen the tail." (6) For more concerning the probable amount of this source of the queen's revenue,consult 1, Madox, Hist. Exch. c. 11, 12, 13; 2, Hume, 130, 135. It was collected in Ireland. See Rymer, R. II. ancient records (y), was, to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone (7) (8). queen. But farther, though the queen is in all respects a subject, Of treason toyet, in point of the security of her life and person, she is wards the put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine 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 (2) 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 (9), it trespassing too strongly as well on natural justice as female modesty. If, however, the queen be accused By the queen, 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. (10). (y) Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127. (7) The reason is more whimsical than the division, for the whalebone lies entirely in the head.-CH. (*) Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21. more truth than discretion; but this (8) The late dowager queen's re- according to a statute which had been venue was settled at 100,0007. (9) This was a clause in the act, which attainted Queen Catherine Howard, and her accomplices, for her incontinence; but it was not repealed till the 1 Ed. VI. c. 12, which abrogated all treasons created since the memorable statute in the 25 Ed. III. -CH. (10) Ann Boleyn was convicted of high treason in the court of the lord high-steward. One of the charges against this unhappy queen was, that she had said, "that the king never had had her heart;" a declaration, if made, in which there was probably passed about two years before for her Articles of impeachment were pre- Articles of impeachment for high treason were exhibited against Henrietta, queen of Car. I. from which she saved herself by an escape to France. 7 Hume, 10.—Сí. how tried. a subject. But his con jugal infidelity not treason. The husband of The husband of a queen regnant, as Prince George of queen regnant, Denmark was to Queen Anne, is her subject; and may be 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. [*223 ] Of the queen dowager. What not treason towards her. her. A queen dowager is the widow of the king, and, as such, Her privileges, enjoys 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 Of marrying 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 Coke (a) tells us, was enacted in parliament in 6 Hen. VI. though the statute be not in print (11). But she, though an alien born, shall still be entitled to dower after the king's demise, which no other alien is (b). A queen dowager, when married again to a subject, doth not lose her 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, yet, by the name of Catherine queen of England, maintained an action against the Bishop of Carlisle. And so, the queen dowager of Navarre, marry (a) 2 Inst. 18. See Riley's Plac. Parl. 72. (b) Co. Litt. 31. (11) Mr. Hargrave, in a note to Co. Litt. 133, says, that no such statute can be found. Lord Coke there refers to it by 8 Hen. VI. No. 7, in 2 Inst. 18; by 6 Hen. VI. No. 41. In |