Even to our own days Queens Consort have had the privilege of acting as _femes soles_. But in early times they exercised considerably more power in the State than we realise to-day. They sat in the Councils, even in the presence of the Kings, and gave their consent to measures along with Kings and Nobles. “The Queen-wife of England also superscribed her name _over_ their warrants or letters of public direction or command, although in the time of Henry VIII. the fashion was that the queens wrote their names over the left side of the first line of such warrants, and not _over_ them as _the Kings do_” (Selden’s “Titles of Honour”). But as many of the Queens Consort, though thus entitled to be ranked among “Freewomen,” were not of native extraction; we do not dwell upon all their privileges, preferring to hasten on to those that indubitably were British Freewomen. =Queens Regnant.=—The first critical moment in the History of Queens Regnant occurs at the death of Henry I., who had, as he considered, arranged satisfactorily for the succession of his daughter Matilda. His attempt proved that the French Salic Law had not been made law in England. A quaint account of his proceeding occurs in the “Lives of the Berkeleys,” published by the Gloucester Archæological Society, 1835, p. 2. “King Harri the first, third sonne of King William the Conqueror, had issue remaining one daughter named Maude ... the sayd King Harri send for his foresayd daughter Maude the Emparice into England, and in open Parliament declared and ordeyned her to bee his eire. To whom then and there were sworen all the lordes of England, and made unto her sewte, admittinge her for his eire. Amongs whom principally and first was sworen Stephen Earle of Boleyn, nevowe of the sayd King Harri the first.” But as Selden says, “I do very well know, that our perjured barons, when they resolved to exclude Queen Maud from the English throne, made this shameful pretence, ‘that it would be a shame for so many nobles to be subject to one woman.’ And yet you shall not read, that the Iceni, our Essex men got any shame by that Boadicea, whom Gildas terms a lioness” (Janus Anglorum). The same author, in noting the laws made by various kings, enters the reign of Stephen as that of an unrighteous king who had no time to make laws for the protection of the kingdom, because he had to fight in defence of his own unjust claim. “In 1136 Henry of England died, and Stephen Earl of Boulogne succeeded. At Mass on the Day of his Coronation, by some mistake, the peace of God was forgotten to be pronounced on the people” (“Antiquitates,” Camden). Prynne calls him “the perjured usurping King Stephen.” The general uncertainty of the succession is betokened in the struggle. Very probably had there not been a Stephen to stir up the nobles, the country might have rested peaceably under the rule of Matilda.