Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/238

222 lamps, or to furnih her attire from head to foot , which was frequently very cotly, as one ingle robe in the fifth year of Henry II tood the city of London in upwards of fourcore pounds. A practice omewhat imilar to that of the eatern countries, where whole cities and provinces were pecifically aigned to purchae particular parts of the queen’s apparel. And, for a farther addition to her income, this duty of queen-gold is uppoed to have been originally granted; thoe matters of grace and favour, out of which it aroe, being frequently obtained from the crown by the powerful interceion of the queen. There are traces of it’s payment, though obcure ones, in the book of domeday and in the great pipe-roll of Henry the firt. In the reign of Henry the econd the manner of collecting it appears to have been well undertood, and it forms a ditinct head in the antient dialogue of the exchequer written in the time of that prince, and uually attributed to Gervae of Tilbury. From that time downwards it was regularly claimed and enjoyed by all the queen conorts of England till the death of Henry VIII; though after the acceion of the Tudor family the collecting of it eems to have been much neglected: and, there being no queen conort afterwards till the acceion of James I, a period of near ixty years, it’s very nature and quantity became then a matter of doubt: and, being referred by the king to the then chief jutices and chief baron, their report of it was o very unfavorable, that queen Anne (though he claimed it) yet never thought proper to exact it. In 1635, 11 Car. I, a time fertile of expedients for raiing money upon dormant precedents in our old records (of which