transacting
her own concerns, without the intervention of the king, as if she was
an unmarried woman.

[Footnote b: 4 Rep. 23.]

[Footnote c: Seld. _Jan. Angl._ 1. 42.]

[Footnote d: _Cod._ 5. 16. 26.]

[Footnote e: Selden tit. hon. 1. 6. 7.]

[Footnote f: Finch. L. 86. Co. Litt. 133.]

THE queen hath also many exemptions, and minute prerogatives. For
instance: she pays no toll[g]; nor is she liable to any amercement in
any court[h]. But in general, unless where the law has expressly
declared her exempted, she is upon the same footing with other
subjects; being to all intents and purposes the king's subject, and
not his equal: in like manner as, in the imperial law, "_augusta
legibus soluta non est_[i]."

[Footnote g: Co. Litt. 133.]

[Footnote h: Finch. L. 185.]

[Footnote i: _Ff._ 1. 3. 31.]

THE queen hath also some pecuniary advantages, which form her a
distinct revenue: as, in the first place, she is intitled to an
antient perquisite called queen-gold or _aurum reginae_; which is a
royal revenue, belonging to every queen consort during her marriage
with the king, and due from every person who hath made a voluntary
offering or fine to the king, amounting to ten marks or upwards, for
and in consideration of any privileges, grants, licences, pardons, or
other matter of royal favour conferred upon him by the king: and it is
due in the proportion of one tenth part more, over and above the
intire offering or fine made to the king; and becomes an actual debt
of record to the queen's majesty by the mere recording the fine[k].
As, if an hundred marks of silver be given to the king for liberty to
take in mortmain, or to have a fair, market, park, chase, or free
warren; there the queen is intitled to ten marks in silver, or (what
was formerly an equivalent denomination) to one mark in gold, by the
name of queen-gold, or _aurum reginae_[l]. But no such payment is due
for any aids or subsidies granted to the king in parliament or
convocation; nor for fines imposed by courts on offenders, against
their will; nor for voluntary presents to the king, without any
consideration moving from him to the subject; nor for any sale or
contract whereby the present revenues or possessions of the crown are
granted away or diminished[m].

[Footnote k: Pryn. _Aur. Reg._ 2.]

[Footnote l: 12 Rep. 21. 4 Inst. 358.]

[Footnote m: _Ibid._ Pryn. 6. Madox. hist. exch. 242.]

THE revenue of our antient queens, before and soon after