antient perquifite cailed queen-gold or aurum veginae; which is a royal revenue, belonging to every queen confort during her marriage with the king, and due from every perion who hath made a voluntary offering or fine to the king, amounting to ten marks or upwards, for aud 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 intire offering or fine made to the king; and becomes an actual debt of record to the queen's majefty by the mere recording of the ine". 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: phere the queen is intitled 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; ncr 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 fubje&; nor for any fale or contract whereby the prefent revenues or poffeffions of the crown are granted away or diminiflied". THE original revenue of our antient queens, before and foon after the conqueft, feems to have confiited in certain refervations or rents out of the demefne lands of the crown, which were exprefsly appropriated to her majefty, dilinct from the king. It is frequent in donicfday-book, after fpecifying the rent due to the crown, to add likewife the quantity of gold or other renders rcferved to the queen". Thefe were frequently appropriated to particular purpofes; to buy wool for her majefty's ufe", to purchase oyl for her lamps", 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 ftcod 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 specifically affigned to purchase particular parts of the queen's apparel'. And, for a farther addition to her income, this duty of queen-gold is fuppofed 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 oncs, in the book of domesday and in the great pipe-roll of Henry the firft. 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 ufually 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 feems 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 so very unfavourable", that his confort queen Anne (though fhe claimed it) yet never thought proper to exact it. In 1635, 11 Car. I, a time fertile of expedients for raifing money upon dormant precedents in our old records P Civitas Lundon. Pro oles ad lampad. reginae. (Mag. rot. pip. temp. Hen. II. ¡õid.) ૧ Vicecomes Berkejire xvi 1. pro cappa reginae. (Mag. rot. fip. 19-22 Hot. II. ibid.) Civitas Lund. cordobanario reginae xx s. (Mag. Kot. 2 Hen. II. Madox. hift. exch. 419.) Pro robu ad opus regince, quit xx !. G vs. viii. (Mag. Rot. 5 Hen. II. int, 250.) $ Solere aiunt barbaros reges Verjarum ac Syrorum uxoribus civitate: attribuen, sc records (of which ship-money was a fatal inftance) the king, at the petition of his queen Henrictta Maria, iffued out his writ for levying it but afterwards purchafed it of his confort at the price of ten thousand pounds; finding it, perhaps, too trifling and troublesome to levy. And when afterwards, at the reftoration, 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 antiquarian, 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 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 fturgione obfervetur, quod rex illum habebit integrum: de balena vero fufficit, fi rex habeat caput, et regina "caudam." The reafon of this whimsical divifion, as afligned by "our antient records', was, to farnish the queen's wardrobe with "whalebone. t BUT farther though the queen is in all refpects a subject, yet, in point of the fecurity of her life and person, she is put on the fame footing with the king. It is equally treafon (by the ftatute 25 Edw. III.) to compafs or imagine the death of 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; a、 well in the perfon committing the fact, as in the queen herfelf, if confenting. A law of Henry the eighth made it treafon 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 trefpaffing too ftrongly, as well on natural juftice, as female modefty. 2 x Bracton. I. 3. c. 3. Britton, c. 17. Flet. 1. 1. c. 45 & 45. y Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127. z Siat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21. defty. If however the queen be accufed of any fpecies of treason, fhe fhall (whether confort or dowager) be tried by the peers of parliament, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Hen. VIII. THE hulband of a queen regnant, as prince George of Denmark was to queen Anne, is her fubject; and may be guilty of high treafon against her: but, in the inftance of conjugal fidelity he is not fubjected to the fame penal restrictions. For which the reason seems 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 qucen 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, prodignitate regali, no man can marry a queen dowager without spccial 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 ftatute be not in print. But fhe, though an alien born, fhall ftill be intitled 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 to their peerage when they marry commoners. For Katherine, queen dowager of Henry V, though the married a private gentleman, Owen ap Meredith ap Theodore, commonly called Owen Tudor; yet, by the name of Katherine queen of England, maintained an action against the bifhop of Carlifle. And fo the queen dowager of Navarre marrying with Edmond, brother to king Edward the firft, maintained an action of dower by the name of queen of Navarre '. THE a = T. 19. See Riley's Flac. Fail. G-2. 3 Co. Litt. 31. THE prince of Wales, or heir apparent to the crown, and alfo his royal confort, and the princess royal, or eldest daughter of the king, are likewise peculiarly regarded by the laws. For, by ftatute 25 Edw. III, to compass or conspire the death of the former, or to violate the chastity of either of the latter, are as much high treason, as to confpire the death of the king, or violate the chaftity of the queen. And this upon the fame reason, as was before given; because the prince of Wales is next in fucceffion to the crown, and to violate his wife might taint the blood royal with baftardy and the eldest daughter of the king is alfo alone inheritable to the crown, in failure of iffue male, and therefore more respected by the laws than any of her younger fifters; infomuch 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 Chefter, by special creation, and inveftiture; but, being the king's eldest fon, he is by inheritance duke of Cornwall, without any new creation ". THE younger fons and daughters of the king, who are not in the immediate line of fucceffion, are little farther regarded by the laws, than to give them precedence before all pcers and public officers as well ecclefiaftical as temporal. This is done by the ftatute 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10. which enacts that no perfon, except the king's children, fhall prefume to fit or have place at the fide of the cloth of eftate in the parliament chamber; and that certain great officers therein named fhall have precedence above all dukes, except only fuch as fhall happen to be the king's fon, brother, uncle nephew (which fir Edward Coke explains to fignify grandfon or nepos) or brother's or fifter's fon. But under the description of the king's children his grandfons are held to be included, without having recourfe to fir Edward Coke's interpretation E e |
