In particular the face of the Queen of Hearts bears a strong likeness to the regular and fair features of Elizabeth’s standard portrait. The moment you juxtapose Elizabeth’s most famous portrait with the image of a modern card deck Queen you can see the similarity, what with both queens’ pointed gable hoods with long, hanging lappets to the side, each daintily holding a flower. However, the stylised French ‘Queens’ on our modern cards bear more than just a passing resemblance to one of our own queens – often overlooked now but beloved by her contemporaries – Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, mother of Henry VIII. Whilst playing cards were absolutely nothing new – the ancient Egyptians used to play them – the standardised ‘suits’ of hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs that we’d recognise today was adopted from a newly evolved French style previously, people would have played with suits more resembling old tarot cards – coins, wands, swords, cups etc. The deck of cards was probably introduced to England in the late 14 th century, immediately rivalling the popularity of old games of chance like dice.
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