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 clergy. First-fruits (annates) and tenths (decimae) formed originally part of the revenue paid by the clergy to the papal exchequer. The former consist of the first whole year’s profit of all spiritual preferments, the latter of one-tenth of their annual profits after the first year. In accordance with the provisions of two acts (5 & 6 Anne, c. 24, and 6 Anne, c. 27) about 3900 poor livings under the annual value of £50 were discharged from first-fruits and tenths. The income derived from first-fruits and tenths was annexed to the revenue of the crown in 1535 (26 Hen. VIII. c. 3), and so continued until 1703. Since that date there has been a large mass of legislation dealing with Queen Anne’s Bounty, the effect of which will be found set forth in a Report of a Joint Select Committee on the Queen Anne’s Bounty Board, 1900. The governors consist of the archbishops and bishops, some of the principal officers of the government, and the chief legal and judicial authorities. The augmentation proceeds on the principle of assisting the smallest benefices first. All the cures not exceeding £10 per annum must have received £200 before the governors can proceed to assist those not exceeding £20 per annum. In order to encourage benefactions, the governors may give £200 to cures not exceeding £45 a year, where any person will give the same or a greater sum. The average income from first-fruits and tenths is a little more than £16,000 a year. In 1906 the trust funds in the hands of the governors amounted to £7,023,000. The grants in 1906 amounted to £28,607, the benefactions to £29,888. The accounts are laid annually before the king in council and the houses of parliament. The duties of the governors are not confined to the augmentation of benefices. They may in addition lend money for the repair and rebuilding of residences and for the execution of works required by the Ecclesiastical Dilapidations Acts, and may receive and apply compensation money in respect of the enfranchisement of copyholds on any benefice. The governors are unpaid; the treasurer and secretary receives a salary of £1000 a year. He is appointed by patent under the great seal, and holds office during the pleasure of the crown.

QUEENBOROUGH, a municipal borough in the Faversham parliamentary division of Kent, England, in the Isle of Sheppey, close to the junction of the Swale and Medway, 2 m. S. of Sheerness on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 1544. The prosperity of the town has been revived in modern times by the establishment by the railway company of a branch line from Sittingbourne in connexion with a service of mail and passenger steamers to Flushing (Holland), which run twice daily. The first copperas factory in England was established at Queenborough in 1579, by Matthias Falconer, of Brabant. In 1890 Portland cement works were built, and there is a large trade in timber. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 302 acres.

A fortress, called Sheppey Castle, is said to have existed from an early period for guarding the passage of the Swale river. Queenborough Castle was built about 1361 by Edward III., who named the town after Queen Philippa and made it a free borough, with a governing body of a mayor and two bailiffs. Charters were granted by subsequent sovereigns down to Charles I., who reincorporated the town under the title of the mayor, jurats, bailiffs and burgesses of Queenborough. The castle never had any military history, and having been seized by parliament together with the other royal possessions, and being considered of insufficient importance for repair, was demolished during the Commonwealth. The borough subsequently decreased in importance. The chief part of the population were employed in the oyster fishery. The town was first represented in parliament by two members in 1572; it lost its franchise by the Reform Act of 1832.

QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, a compact group lying off the northern part of the coast of British Columbia, and forming part of that province of Canada. Geologically the group is composed mainly of Triassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary strata, penetrated by intrusive rocks. It occupies a position similar to that held by Vancouver Island farther to the south, in regard to the mainland coast and its immediately adjacent islands, but is separated by a somewhat wider sea from the coast. It was named by Captain Dixon, who visited the islands in the “Queen Charlotte” in 1787. Although the islands promise to become important, because of their excellent harbours, the discovery of good seams of bituminous coal (beside the anthracite already known), their abundant timber of certain kinds and their prolific fisheries, but little settlement has taken place. The wonderfully productive halibut fisheries of Hecate Strait, which separates these islands from the mainland and its adjacent islands, have attracted the attention of fishing companies, and great quantities of this fish are taken regularly and shipped across the continent in cold storage. The natives, the Haida people, constitute with little doubt the finest race, and that most advanced in the arts, of the entire west coast of North America. They had developed in its highest degree the peculiar conventional art of the north-west coast Indians, which is found in decreasing importance among the Tsimshians on the west, the Tlingit on the north and the Kwakiutl and other tribes farther south on the Pacific coast. The carved totem posts of the Haida, standing in front of the heavily framed houses, or at a little distance from them, represent the coats of arms of the respective families of the tribes and generally exhibit designs treated in a bold and original manner, highly conventionalized but always recognizable in their purport by any one familiar with the distinctive marks of the animal forms portrayed. These primitive monuments are, however, rapidly falling to decay, and the people who erected them are becoming reduced in number and spirit. The native population of the islands is less than 700.

QUEENSBERRY, EARLS, MARQUESSES AND DUKES OF. The Queensberry title, one of the many with which the Scottish house of Douglas is associated, originated in the creation of Sir William Douglas (d. 1640) as earl of Queensberry in 1633. He was the eldest son of Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig (d. 1616). His grandson William, the 3rd earl (1637–1695), was created marquess of Queensberry in 1682 and duke of Queensberry in 1684; he was lord justice general and an extraordinary lord of session. He was also lord high treasurer of Scotland, and served James II. as lord high commissioner to the parliament of 1685, but in 1686 he was deprived of his offices. He had assented to the accession of William and Mary and had again enjoyed the royal favour before he died on the 28th of March 1695. His son James Douglas, the 2nd duke (1662–1711), was born at Sanquhar Castle on the 18th of September 1662, and was educated at the university of Glasgow, afterwards spending some time in foreign travel. At the Revolution of 1688 he sided with William of Orange and was made a privy councillor; after he had become duke of Queensberry in 1695 he was appointed an extraordinary lord of session and keeper of the privy seal. He was the royal commissioner to the famous Scottish parliament which met in 1700, and just after the accession of Anne in 1702 he was made one of the secretaries of state for Scotland. In the latter part of 1703 he came under a temporary cloud through his connexion with the Jacobite intriguer, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who had utilized Queensberry’s jealousy of the duke of Atholl to obtain a commission from him to get evidence in France which would implicate Atholl. The plot was betrayed by Robert Ferguson, and Queensberry was deprived of his offices. However, in 1705 he was restored and in 1706 he was again commissioner to the Scottish parliament; in this capacity he showed great ability in carrying through the treaty for the union of the two crowns, which, chiefly owing to his influence and skill, was completed in 1707. For this he was very unpopular in Scotland, but he received a pension of £3000 a year. In 1708 he was created duke of Dover and marquess of Beverley, and he obtained a special remainder by which his titles were to pass to his second surviving son Charles, and not to his eldest son James, who was an idiot. In February 1709 he was appointed third secretary of state, and he died on the 6th of July 1711.