ity of her life and person, she is put on the same
footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw.
III.) to compass or imagine the death of our lady the king's
companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile, the
queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person
committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of
Henry the eighth[z] made it treason also for any woman, who was not a
virgin, to marry the king without informing him thereof. But this law
was soon after repealed; it trespassing too strongly, as well on
natural justice, as female modesty. If however the queen be accused
of any species of treason, she shall (whether consort or dowager) be
tried by the house of peers, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Hen. VIII.

[Footnote z: Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 21.]

THE husband of a queen regnant, as prince George of Denmark was to
queen Anne, is her subject; and may be guilty of high treason against
her: but, in the instance of conjugal fidelity, he is not subjected to
the same penal restrictions. For which the reason seems to be, that,
if a queen consort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or
bastardize the heirs to the crown; but no such danger can be
consequent on the infidelity of the husband to a queen regnant.

A QUEEN _dowager_ is the widow of the king, and as such enjoys most of
the privileges belonging to her as queen consort. But it is not high
treason to conspire her death; or to violate her chastity, for the
same reason as was before alleged, because the succession to the crown
is not thereby endangered. Yet still, _pro dignitate regali_, no man
can marry a queen dowager without special licence from the king, on
pain of forfeiting his lands and goods. This sir Edward Coke[a] tells
us was enacted in parliament in 6 Hen. IV, though the statute be not
in print. But she, though an alien born, shall still be intitled to
dower after the king's demise, which no other alien is[b]. A queen
dowager, when married again to a subject, doth not lose her regal
dignity, as peeresses dowager do their peerage when they marry
commoners. For Katherine, queen dowager of Henry V, though she married
a private gentleman, Owen ap Meredith ap Theodore, commonly called
Owen Tudor; yet, by the name of Katherine queen of England, maintained
an action against the bishop of Carlisle. And so the queen of Navarre
marrying with Edmond, brother to king Edward the f