Oh! royal maid, Put on your regal robes in loveliness. A thousand fair attendants round you wait, Of various ranks, with different offices, To deck your beauteous form. Lo, this delights To smooth with ivory comb your golden hair, And that to curl and braid each shining tress, And wreathe the sparkling jewels round your head, Twining your soft, smooth locks with gems. This one shall clasp The radiant necklace framed in fretted gold About your snowy neck, while that unfolds The robes that glow with gold and purple dye, And fits the ornaments with patient skill To your unrivalled limbs, and here shall shine The costly treasures from the Orient sands. The sapphire, azure gem that emulates Heaven's loftly arch, shall gleam, and softly there The verdant emerald shed its greenest light, And fiery carbuncle flash forth its rosy rays From the pure gold. This graphic description of hair, costume, and ornaments seems to be still repeated in the cards of to-day that closely resemble the portraits of this dainty queen. Elizabeth was a believer in fortune-telling and consulted an astrologer on many occasions. It was predicted that all sorts of good fortune would befall her in 1503, on the day that she completed her thirty-seventh year. This is alluded to in the elegy that Sir Thomas More wrote on his royal mistress, describing in it the folly and vanity of such divinations and their untrustworthiness, as follows: Yet was I lately promised otherwise This year to lie in weal and in delight; Lo! to what cometh all thy blandishing promises, O false astrology and divinitrice, Of God's secrets vaunting thyself so wise? How true is for this year the prophecy? The year yet lasteth, and lo, here I lie. It booteth not for me to wail and cry, Pray for my soul, for lo, here I die. For, after a short and sad married life, Queen Elizabeth died on her birthday, February 11, 1503. "She was," says Miss Strickland, "one of the most beautiful of our queens. Her portraits are numerous and her monumental statue is in King Henry's Chapel at Westminster Abbey. It was designed by Torregiano and shows the sweet expression of her mouth." The portrait of this lovely, gentle lady may well remain as queen of the Card Kingdom, with that of her son, Henry VIII, as king. In England the Queen of Hearts is still frequently called "Queen Bess." The plaid or chequered backs fashionable at one time on cards were later discarded, since they could so easily be used by gamblers, who put marks on the cards that could not readily be discerned by unaccustomed players. The chequered backs gave rise to the supposition that the board for playing chess had been transferred to the backs of the cards, and the chessmen had been converted into printed figures on the faces of the cardboard. This idea has been proved incorrect, since cards are in no way derived from the game of Chess.