The inscription shows that the work was a gift for Francis Walsingham, to whose family its provenance can be traced. Along the bottom, it reads: "THE QUENE. TO. WALSINGHAM. THIS. TABLET. SENTE. MARKE. OF. HER. PEOPLES. AND HER. OWNE. CONTENTE". Inscription around the frame: "A FACE OF MUCHE NOBILLITYE LOE IN A LITLE ROOME. FOWR STATES WITH THEYR CONDITIONS HEARE SHADOWED IN. A SHOWE A FATHER MORE THEN VALYANT. A RARE AND VERTUOUS SOON. A ZEALUS DAUGHTER IN HER KIND WHAT ELS THE WORLD DOTH KNOWE. AND LAST OF ALL A VYRGIN QUEEN TO ENGLANDS JOY WE SEE SUCCESSYVELY TO HOLD THE RIGHT, AND VERTUES OF THE THREE".

Mixing portraiture and allegory, the painting anachronistically shows Henry VIII, his three children, and Queen Mary's husband, Philip of Spain, alongside figures from mythology. Henry sits on his throne in the centre, with his son Edward, the future Edward VI, kneeling beside him receiving the sword of justice. Henry died in 1547, but on the left of the picture his daughter Mary is shown next to Philip, whom she didn't marry until 1554 when she was queen, with Mars, god of war, behind them, symbolising the wars they fought. Elizabeth, by contrast, stands on the right of the picture holding the hand of Peace, who treads the sword of discord underfoot, as Plenty attends with her cornucopia. Painted in Elizabeth's reign c. 1572, the picture stresses her legitimate descent from the Tudor dynasty and her role as a bringer of peace and prosperity to the realm.

Owing to a similarity of style and composition with Lucas de Heere's Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1559) and other works, the art historian Roy Strong has attributed the work to de Heere; the art scholar and curator Karen Hearn, however, regards the attribution as speculative. Another source for the composition may be the anachronistic (Queen Jane Seymour died shortly after giving birth to Prince Edward) group portrait The Family of Henry VIII (c. 1545). Prototypes for the portraits have been detected in paintings by Holbein (Henry), Scrots (Edward), Mor (Mary and Philip), and, less confidently, Hilliard (Elizabeth). (Reference: Hearn, pp. 81–82.)