QUEEN

(Anglo-Sax. cwen, wife.) 1. A female sovereign; entitled queen regnant, or queen regent. She has, in Great Britain, the same power, prerogatives, ., as a king, which is expre ly declared by stat. 1 Mir. 1, St. 3, c. 1. In France, where females do not succeed to the throne, the title queen regent has been given to the mothers of kings holding sovereign authority, or a portion of it, during the minority of their sons; as Catherine do Medicis in the reign of Francis II.; Mary de Medicis, in that of Louis XIII. 2. Queen Consort. The wife of a king. Her rights and dignities (in England, as well as most other countries) ap pear to be similar in many respects to those of the ''August a,"orPii ima regma conjux divi imperator is, in imperial Rome. The English queen, like the Roman empre , is capable of receiving a erant from her husband, or making one to him; therein differing from all other wives. She can also purchase and convey land, , without his concurrence, and sue and be sued alone: in short, she is looked upon in all legal proceedings as a feme sole. But, except where she enjoys specific exemptions, she is only on a footing with oilier subjects; and this also is according U» the Roman maxim, "August a legibus soluta non est." By the Statute of Treasons, 25 Ed. 3, to compa or imagine the death of the king's "companion," and also to violate and defile her, is treason. The queen, if accused of treason herself, is tried bv the peers of parliament; as Ann Boleyn in 28 Hen. 8. The consort of George IV. was proceeded against by the method of a bill of pains and1015penaltic* [s. 1027]