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 feparate exiftence fo 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 offices 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 counsel *. She may likewife 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. For which the reafon given by fir Edward Coke is this: because the wisdom of the common law would not have the king (whose continual care and study 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 he was an unmarried woman. THE queen hath alfo 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 Rep. 23. Seld. Jan. Angl. 1. 42. a Cod. 5. 16. 26. • Seld. tit. hon. 1. 6. 7. f Finch. L. 86. Co. Litt. 133 Co. Litt. 133. h Finch. L. 155. [219] lefs lefs where the law has exprefsly declared her exempted, `she is upon the fame footing with other fubjects; being to all intents and purposes the king's subject, and not his equal: in like manner as, in the imperial law, " Augufta legibus foluta non eft." THE queen hath alfo 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 [220] 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 such 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 fubject; nor for any fale or contract whereby the prefent revenues or poffeffions of the crown are granted away or diminished m. THE original revenue of our antient queens, before and foon after the conqueft, feems to have confifted in certain refervations or rents out of the demefne lands of the crown, i Ff. 1. 3. 31. k Pryn. Aur. Reg. 2. 112 Rep. 21. 4 Inft. 358. m Ibid. Pryn. 6. Madox. hift. exch. 242. which were expressly appropriated to her majesty, diftin& from the king. It is frequent in domesday book, after speci fying the rent due to the crown, to add likewise 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, or to furnish her attire from head to foot, which was frequently very costly, as one single robe in the fifth year of Henry II ftood the city of London in upwards of fourscore pounds. [ 221 ] A practice fomewhat similar 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 fupposed 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 interceffion of the queen. There are traces of it's payment, though obfcure ones, in the book of domefday 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 diftinct 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 seems Bedefordfeire Maner. Leftone redd. per annum xxii lib. &c.: ad opus reginae ii uncias auri.. Herefordfeire. In Lene, &c. confuetud. ut praepofitus ma nerii veniente domina sua (regina ) in maner. praefentaret ei xviii oras dener, ut effet if ja laeto animo. Pryn. Append. to Aur. Reg. 2, 3. 0 Caufa coadunandi lanam reginae. Domefd. ibid. P Civias Lundon. Pro sleo ad lampad. reginae. (Mag. rot. pip. temp. Hen. II. ibid.) Vicecomes Berkojċire, xvi 1. pro cappa reginae. (Mag. ret. pip. 19.-22 Hen. VOL. I. II. ibid.) Civitas Lund. cordubanariore- Proroba ad opus reginae, quater xxl. $ Solere aiunt barbaros reges Perfarum See Madox Difceptat. ep filar. 74. all. 2. c. 26. U 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 juftices and chief baron, their report of it was so 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 ship-money was a fatal inftance) the king, at the petition of his queen, Henrietta Maria, iffued out his writ" for levying it: but afterwards purchafed 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 [222] 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 furgione obfervetur, quod rex illum habebit int grum: de balena vero fufficit, fi rex habeat caput, et regina candam." The reafon of this whimfical divifion, as affigned by our antient records, was, to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone (2). ་་ • Mr. Prynne, with fome appearance of reafon, infinuates, that their refearches were very fuperficial. (Aur. Reg. 125.) W 19 Rym. Ford. 721. * Bracton. 1. 3. c. 3. Britton. c. 17. Flet. . 1. c. 45 46. y Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127. (2) The reafon is more whimsical than the divifion, for the whalebone lics entirely in the head. BUT BUT farther though the queen is in all respects 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 treason (by the ftatute 25 Edw. III.) to compafs or imagine the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himfelf: and to violate, or defile the queen confort, amounts to the same 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 treafon alfo for any woman, who was not a virgin, to marry the king without informing him thereof: but this law was soon after repealed (3), it trefpalling too strongly, as well on natural juftice, 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 (4). THE husband of a queen regnant, as prince George of Denmark was to queen Anne, is her fubject; and may be z Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21. (3) This was a claufe in the act, which attainted queen Catharine Howard and her accomplices for her incontinence; but it was not repealed till the 1 Ed. VI. c. 12. which abrogated all treafons created fince the memorable ftatute in the 25 Ed. III. I (4) Ann Boleyn was convicted of high treason in the court of the lord high-fteward. 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 more truth than difcretion; but this was adjudged to be a flander of her own iffue, and therefore high treafon, according to a statute which had been paffed about two years before for her honour and protection. Harg. St. Tr. 11 vol. p. 10. Articles of impeachment were prepared against queen Catharine Parr for heresy, in prefuming to controvert the theological doctrines of the king; but by her dexterity and addrefs, fhe baffled the defigns of her enemies, and regained the affections of that caprici-ous monarch. 4 Hume, 259. Articles of impeachment for high treafon were exhibited against Henrietta: queen of Car. I. from which the faved herself by an efcape to France. 7 Hume, to. U 2 guilty |