The Queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. The usual rank of a queen is as if it were 12 (or 13), that is, between the King and the Jack, or Knight.
In the standard English playing card deck, legend states the Queen of Hearts is a representation of Elizabeth of York, queen consort of Henry VII of England. Certainly the headdress the queen wears under her crown is of the Early Tudor era.
In contrast, French deck manufacturers traditionally assigned each court card a particular historical or mythological personage. The Queens in a French deck have traditionally assigned names as follows:
- Queen of Spades: Athena
- Queen of Hearts: Judith (Biblical figure)
- Queen of Diamonds: Rachel (Biblical figure)
- Queen of Clubs: Argine (an anagram of Regina, Latin for "queen")
Famous quotes containing the word queen:
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)