Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/239

Ch. 4. which hip-money was a fatal intance) the king, at the petition of his queen Henrietta Maria, iued out his writ for levying it; but afterwards purchaed it of his conort at the price of ten thouand pounds; finding it, perhaps, too trifling and troubleome to levy. And when afterwards, at the retoration, by the abolition of the military tenures, and the fines that were conequent upon them, the little that legally remained of this revenue was reduced to almot nothing at all, in vain did Mr Prynne, by a treatie which does honour to his abilities as a painful and judicious antiquarian, endeavour to excite queen Catherine to revive this antiquated claim.

antient perquiite belonging to the queen conort, mentioned by all our old writers, and, therefore only, worthy notice, is this: that on the taking of a whale on the coats, which is a royal fih, it hail be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king’s property, and the tail of it the queen’s. “” The reaon of this whimical diviion, as aigned by our antient records, was, to furnih the queen’s wardrobe with whalebone. farther: though the queen is in all repects a ubject, yet, in point of the ecurity of her life and peron, he is put on the ame footing with the king. It is equally treaon (by the tatute 25 Edw. III.) to compas or imagine the death of our lady the king’s companion, as of the king himelf: and to violate, or defile, the queen conort, amounts to the ame high crime; as well in the peron committing the fact, as in the queen herelf, if conenting. A law of Henry the eighth made it treaon alo for any woman, who was not a virgin, to marry the king without informing him thereof: but this law was oon after repealed; it trepaing too trongly, as well on natural jutice, as female mo- dety.