HISTORIANS of the Church in England write of the First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI (1549 and 1552) and of the Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1559. But no one calls what we know as the Book of Common Prayer, the 1662 revision of Cranmer’s, the Caroline Prayer Book. Nor are the ASB 1980 and Common Worship (yet) called the First and Second Prayer Books of Queen Elizabeth II.

This came to mind on visiting a Pall Mall showroom the day before the State Opening of Parliament. While parishes struggle to find appropriate ways to commemorate our late sovereign’s unbeatable record of 70 years as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the gallery marks the centenary of her birth with an exhibition of her namesake. She is surrounded by her court, the Cecils, Walsingham, her favourite Leicester, and Lord Hunsdon, “My Harry”, as she called the man who may have been her half-brother.

On the first wall, there are four royal portraits, the earliest of which is of the young scholarly princess in her early twenties. Those of her as queen are The “Clopton” Portrait and the sumptuous “Hampden” Portrait (1563-677), attributed to a Flemish artist when first shown in 2013, but now given to the English artist George Gower, with one of the later ones from the 1590s.

What struck me was that, in the two earliest (and smaller) portraits, Elizabeth carries a book. I can think of no portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II with a book, let alone a Prayer Book. In the first of these portraits, the Tudor Princess Elizabeth’s finger marks a page in a green bound volume, a paper slip another. Presumably, this octavo volume is a classical text. Fittingly for the court of Philip and Mary, she wears a large sparkling diamond cross on her breast.

© Philip Mould & Company, LondonA concealed portrait of John Stubbs (Stubbes) (c.1541-1590) (c.1590): double-sided panel depicting the three graces (recto)

In the so-called Clopton portrait, she has a red bound and gold-tooled book in her hand. If it is a copy of the new Prayer Book, the portrait must date after 1558. The queen in sober black is wearing the famous Mirror of France, a jewel much beloved by her father which ultimately James VI and I wore as a hat badge.

But it is not that Elizabeth’s reign was without comment or criticism, not least when earlier attempts to find a potential dynastic marriage led inexorably towards Catholic Europe.

The most surprising object on display is a recently discovered “concealed” portrait that served as a sort of reliquary cover for the hand of a barrister, John Stubbe (c.1543-89/90).

© Philip Mould & Company, LondonA severed hand with inscription (verso), Oil on panel (recto with gilding) 7¾ × 6 3/8 in. In an oak frame constructed in 2026 by Peter Schade

One of the hotter sort of Protestants, “Puritans” avant la lettre, he had denounced her intention to marry the Catholic Duke of Alençon in a tract, The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf (1579). For his pains, he was tried at Westminster and had his right hand severed, a hand “that lost thye selfe to save thy Native land”.

He continued to pledge his unswerving allegiance to Elizabeth and was elected MP for Great Yarmouth ten years later, and then went to fight in France, where he lost his life. He was buried with full military honours outside Le Havre.

In his posthumous portrait in miniature, he proudly displays his badge as Under-Steward of Great Yarmouth with his left hand. An indifferent depiction of the Three Graces could hide it. On the reverse, a verse celebrates the hand that blessed his body. Extraordinary.

“Elizabeth I: Queen and Court” is at Philip Mould & Company, 18-19 Pall Mall, London SW1, until 16 July. Phone 020 7499 6818. philipmould.com