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Commentaries on the Laws of England; in Four Books. by Sir William Blackstone ... Together with Such Notes of Enduring Value As

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Commentaries on the Laws of England; in Four Books. by Sir William Blackstone ... Together with Such Notes of Enduring Value As 220 THE KING'S ROYAL FAMILY. [Book L due to the crown, to add likewise the quantity of gold or other renders reserved to the queen, (n) These were frequently appropriated to particular purposes; to buy wool for her majesty's use, (o) to purchase oil for her lamps, (p) or to fur- nish her attire from head to foot, (q) which was frequently very costly, as one F *2211 8'n£'e rob6) in the fifth year of Henry II, *stood the city of London in I- *v J 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. («) And, for a further 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 Second the manner of collecting it appears to have been well under- stood, and 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 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 unfavorable, (v) 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 (w) for levying it; but after- wards 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 F *2221 re8*-oration, % *the abolition of the military tenures, and the fines that *• "J J 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 Catharine to revive this antiquated claim. Another ancient perquisite belonging to the queen consort, mentioned by all our old writers, (x) and, therefore only, worthy notice, is this: that, on the taking of a whale on the coast, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king's property, and the toil of it the wardrobe with whalebone. (2) But farther, though the-queen is in all respects a subject, yet, in point of the security of her life and person, she isput on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. Ill,) to compass or imagine the death (n) Bedefordeeire Maner. Lestone redd, per annum xxii lib. <fc.; ad optu regime ii ucitu rmri.—HereJord- tcire. In '/.<•»<•, .)•<•., coniuetud. tttprcepotitut manerii veniente domino, mm (regina) in nunirr. prtetentaret d xviU orai denar. vt eiset ipsa Into ammo. Pryn. Append, to Aur. Reg. 2, 3. (o) Causa coadunandi tnnam regina. Dornesrt. ibid. (p) Civitat Lundon. l*ro oleo ad lampad. regina. (Mag. rot. pip. temp. Hen. II, ibid.) (q) Vicecomei Berke»cire. xvi 1. pro cappa regina. (Mag. rot. pip. la.—22 Ben. II, ibid.) Civitas Lund cordulxmario regintr xx s. (Mag. rot. 2 Hen. II. Mndox. Hist. Exch. iW>.) (r) Pro roba ad opus regime, qutiter xxl. etvi 8 viii d. (Mag. rot. 5 Hen.II, ibid. 250 ) (») Solere aiuni barbaroa regei Peraiarum ac Syrorum—uxoribui ciritates attrilntere, hoe modo i hose ctri- tas mulieri redimiculwn prcebeat, here in collum, hoic in crines, ifc. (Cic. in Verrem, lib. 3. cap. 33.) ft) See Madox, Diseeptat. Eptitolar. 74. Pryn. Aur. Beg. Append. 6. (u) Lib. 2, c. 26. (v) Mr. Prynne, with some appearance of reason, insinuates that their researches were very superficial. (Aur. Reg. 125 J (v>) 19 Kym. Fad. 721. (x) Bracton, 1. 3, c. 3. Brltton, c 17. Flet. 1.1, c. 45 et 46. ftJ Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127. (2) [The reason is more whimsical than the division, for the whalebone lies entirely in the head.] 142 Generated for asbigham (University of Michigan) on 2013-04-29 18:50 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433008577102 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd-google Chap. 4.J OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 222 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 per- son committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of Henry the Eighth (z) 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, (3) 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. The husband of a queen regnant, as Prince George of 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 r MOO -i is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or bastardize the heirs to *• J the crown; but no such danger can be consequent on the infidelity of the hus- band to a queen regnant. A queen dowager is the widow of the king, and, as such, enjoys most of the privileges belonging to her as queen consort. But it is not high treason to con- spire 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 Ed- ward Coke (a) 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. (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 Mere- dith ap Theodore, commonly called Owen Tudor, yet, by the name of Catherine, queen of England, maintained an action against the bishop of Carlisle. (4) 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, (c) The prince of Wales, or heir-apparent to the crown, and also his royal con- sort, and the princess royal, or eldest daughter of the king, are likewise peculiarly regarded by the laws. For, by statute 25 Edw. Ill, 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 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 is also alone inheritable to the *crown, on failure of issue male, and therefore more r ^^. -i respected by the laws than any of her younger sisters, insomuch that <• " •" J upon this, united with other (feudal) 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, (5) and (*) Stat. 33 Hen. VIII, c. 21. (a) 2 Inst. 18. See JWey'sPlac. 1'ai 1.672. (6) Co. I.in. 31. b. (c) 2 lust. 90. (3) [This was a clause in the act, which attainted Queen Catharine Howard, and her accom- plices, for her incontinence; but it was not repealed till the 1 Edw. VI, c. 12, which abrogated all treasons created since the memorable statute in the 25 Edw. III.] (4) [The foregoing proposition is not really illustrated by the case of Catherine, inasmuch as her marriage with Tudor was carefully concealed, and not discovered till after her burial, when it produced great public excitement and uproar, as she left four children.
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