[w] Mr Prynne, with some appearance of reason, insinuates, that their researches were very superficial. Aur. Reg. 125.
Another antient 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 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 antient records[y], was, to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone.
[x] Bracton, l. 3. c. 3. Britton, c. 17. Fleta, l. 1. c. 45 & 46.
[y] Pryn. Aur. Reg. 127.
But farther: though the queen is in all respects a subject, yet, in point of the security of her life and person, she is 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[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 But this law was soon after repealed; it trespassing too strongly, as well on natural justice, as female modesty.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 house of peers, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Hen. VIII.
[z] Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21.
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 fidelity, 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.
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 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 Coke[a] tells us was enacted in parliament in 6 Hen. IV, though the statute be not in print. But she, though an alien born, shall still be intitled to dower after the king's demise, which no other alien is[]. 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 Katherine, 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 Katherine queen of England, maintained an action against the bishop of Carlisle. And so the queen of Navarre marrying with Edmond, brother to king Edward the first, maintained an action of dower by the name of queen of Navarre[c].
[a] 2 Inst. 18.
[] Co. Litt. 31 b.