Queen (A.S. cwén, 'a woman,' cognate with Dutch kween, Ice. kvín, Gr. gyné, Sansk. jani), in its primary signification, the king's consort, who has in all countries been invested with privileges not belonging to other married women. The English queen, unlike other wives, can make a grant to her husband, and receive one from him. She can sue and be sued alone, and purchase land without the king's concurrence. The Statute of Treasons makes it treason to compass her death, or to violate her chastity, even with her consent, and the queen consenting is herself guilty of treason. If accused of treason, the queen is tried by the peers of the realm. The queen-consort is exempt from paying toll, and from amercements in any court. She has a Household (q.v.) of her own. It has been the usual practice to crown the queen-consort with solemnities similar to those used in the coronation of the king. In the case of Queen Caroline, consort of George IV., who was living apart from her husband, this was not done. Certain rents or revenues were anciently appropriated to the income of the queen, but no separate revenues seem ever to have been settled on any queen-consort by parliament. Her personal expenses are defrayed from the king's privy purse.
The queen-dowager is the widow of the deceased king. She retains most of the privileges which she enjoyed as queen-consort, nor does she lose her dignity by re-marriage; but it has been held that no one can marry the queen-dowager without permission from the king, on pain of forfeiture of lands and goods. On the marriage of a king, or accession of an unmarried prince, parliament makes provision for the queen's maintenance, in case of her survival.
The queen-regnant is a sovereign princess who has succeeded to the kingly power. In modern times, in those countries where the Salic law does not prevail, on failure of males a female succeeds to the throne. By an act of Queen Mary, the first queen-regnant in England, it was declared 'that the regall power of this realme is in the quene's majestie as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her most noble progenitours kinges of this realme;' and it has since been held that the powers, prerogatives, and dignities of the queen-regnant differ in no respect from those of the king. The husband of the queen-regnant is her subject; but in the matter of conjugal infidelity he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions as the queen-consort. He is not endowed by the constitution with any political rights or privileges, and his honours and precedence must be derived from the queen. The Prince Consort was naturalised by 3 and 4 Vict., words being used which enabled him to be a privy-councillor, and sit in parliament; but it was provided that His Royal Highness was not, by virtue of his marriage, to acquire any interest in the property of Her Majesty. By a decree of the Queen, Prince Albert enjoyed place, pre-eminence, and precedence next to Her Majesty.