QUEEN (Sax. men, woman; Gr. gyne, woman; Sansk, goal, mother, from gan, to generate), in its primary signification, the king's consort, who has in all countries been invested with privileges not belonging to other married women. The English queen, unlike otherwives, can make a grant to her husband, and receive one from him. She can sue and be sued alone, and purchase land without the king's concurrence. The statute of treasons makes it treason to compass her death, or to violate her chastity, even with her consent, and the queen consenting, is herself guilty of treason. If accused of treason, the queen is tried by the peers of the realm. A duty, amounting to one-tenth of the value of fines on grants by the crown. was in former times duo to the queen, under the name of queen-gold. Charles I. purchased it from his cen:ort, Henrietta Maria, in 1635, for £10,000, hut it was not renewed at the restoration. The queen-con sort is exempt from paying toll, and from amercements in any court. She has a house hold of her own, consisting of • six ladies of the bedchamber, a lord-chamberlain, vice chamberlain, mistress of the robes, master of the horse, and three equerries, as also her attorney-general and solicitor-general, distinct from those of the king, who are entitled to take a place within the bar along with the king's counsel, and prosecute suits in law and equity for the queen. It has been the usual practice to crown the queen-consort with solemnities similar to those used in the coronation of the king. In the case of queen Caroline, consort of George IV., who was living apart from her husband, this was not done, though her right to coronation was argued by Mr. Brougham before the privy-council. Certain rents or revenues were anciently appropriated to the income of the queen, but no separate revenues seem ever to have been settled on any queen consort by parliament. Her personal expenses are defrayed from the king's privy purse.
The is the widow of the deceased king. She retains most of the privileges which site enjoyed as queen-consort, nor does she lose her dignity by re-mar riage; but it has been held that no one can marry the queen-dowager without permission from the king, on pain of forfeiture of lands and goods. On the marriage of a king, or accession of an unmarried prince, parliament makes prevision for the qpeen's mainte nance, in case of hersurvivance. An income of £100,000 a year, with two residences, was
settled on the queen of George III.; and the same provision was made for the late dowager-queen Adelaide, at the commencement of the reign of William IV. The queen dowager, when mother of the reigning sovereign, is styled the queen-mother. Until the *me of George IL, queens-consort bore the arms of the king impaled with their paternal coat, with the king's dexter and their paternal sinister-supporter; since that period, they have used both royal supporters. It is not usual to place the arms of the queen-consort within the garter.
The is a sovereign princess who has succeeded to the kingly power. In modern times, in those countries where the Salle law does not prevail, on failure of males, a female succeeds to the throne. By an act of queen Mary, the, first queen-reg nant in England, it was declared "that the recall power of this realme is in the quene's majestic as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her most noble progenitoura kinges of this realise;" and it has since been held that the powers, prerogatives, and dignities of the queen-regnant differ in no respect from those of the king. The husband of the queen-regnant is her subject; but in the matter of conjugal infidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions as the queen-consort. He is not endowed by the constitution with any political rights or privileges, and his honors and precedence must be derived from the queen. The late prince-consort was naturalized by 3 and 4 Tiet. c. 1, 2, words being used which enabled him t9 be a privy-councilor, and sit is parliament; and by 3 and 4 Viet. c. 3, queen Victoria was empowered to grant him an annuity of £30,000; but it was provided that his royal highness was not, by virtue of his marriage, to acquire any interest in the property of her majesty. By a decree of the queen, prince Albert enjoyed place, pre-eminence, and precedence next to her majesty.
A queen-regnant is the only woman who is in her own right entitled to bear her arms in a shield and not in a lozenge. She is also entitled to the exterior ornaments of helmet, mantling, crest, and motto. and may surround her shield with the garter, and the collars and ribbons of all other orders of knighthood of which she is sovereign.