Queen of Hearts

    I'm not much of a gambler these days, but I remember spending a whole summer of my childhood learning to play poker and various other card games with my brother and cousins.  Between us all, I'm sure we lost at least one allowance each before we switched to only playing with chips instead of money.  As we learned the rules of the games, we also tried our hand at card tricks, and in all that time we must have studied the faces on those cards because we noticed little details we never had before.  As we noticed we started wondering about the stories behind these figures.  We spent time discussing such questions as were they real and why was the King of Hearts so distraught.  

    I don't think we'll ever truly know who the faces are on our playing cards.  Rumor abound, but facts are far fewer.  What we do know is that have been around since at least the 14th century and have been used over the years to represent various political leaders.  As for myself, I prefer to think that the Queen of Hearts was King Henry the VIII's fiery ginger daughter Elizabeth the I of England, but it's more likely that the true Queen of Hearts, if she was a real person, lived a hundred years or more before Elizabeth was born.  Whatever the facts are, I think it's far more fun to wonder and imagine who these people might have been.