Miniature Elizabethan style scroll

When Her Majesty requested a tiny scroll in an Elizabethan grant/charter document style for an award dear to her heart I really wasn't sure what to do. The extra small scrolls are something I like to do but the style is heavy on calligraphy, not my strong point. The original plan was to collaborate where I would do the drawing/painting but someone else would do the calligraphy. We found examples of the style with portraits of Elizabeth in the initial capital E, sometimes in color, sometimes pen and ink. Being grants or charters, these were all of a rather large size, easily over 2 feet on a side.

The primary exemplar was a letter patent dated 1572 (UC Berkeley, Robbins MS 151). It is 609 x 761 mm (24 x 30 inches), which eventually got worked down to 4 x 6 inches, not entirely to scale but it looked okay. The wordsmith, also specially requested by Her Majesty, did an amazing job with creating a short text in the corresponding style. Not something that you'd historically see but it "felt" right!

Unfortunately, due to the way scheduling worked out, the calligrapher had a lot going on and I wasn't willing to add more to her plate just because I was afraid of a new writing style and those fancy cadels. Eek. I'd avoided this for a really long time but everyone kept telling me it wasn't so hard. Well, after a lot of practice, fiddling, tracing, graphing, and creativity, I came up with cadels I found acceptable. The hardest part was the B with the entire center section empty for the portrait. They were actually right about the calligraphy, not that bad! More like handwriting and a lot more forgiving than most hands.

The drawing was the easy part for me. At that size, really, just get it vaguely looking like the person and it's fine. The little acorn represented Her Majesty and the rose represented the award.