Negotiating a Courtship between Courts: Hilliard’s Prayer Book Portraits of Queen Elizabeth and the Duc d’Anjou

Abstract

Since its last appearance in 1889, the whereabouts of the small book of prayers belonging to Queen Elizabeth I has been unknown. It survives only in the form of a black-and-white facsimile commissioned by its last known owner. Inside are two miniatures by Nicholas Hilliard. With one showing François Hercule, duc d’Anjou and the other Queen Elizabeth, the prayer book undoubtedly relates to Anjou’s unsuccessful courtship of Elizabeth. This article presents the first full-length study of the prayer book in relation to the miniatures that it contains. Agreeing with Jane Lawson’s identification of the book with a gift given to Elizabeth by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the New Year of 1582, this article examines the reasons why Leicester might have commissioned a prayer book of this kind at this late moment in Anjou’s courtship and the iconographical significance in including these two miniature portraits in a book of prayers.

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