After days of political tumult in Westminster, a single image of calm suddenly emerged on Wednesday evening from the inner sanctum of royal authority: The Queen granting private audience to a genuflecting Theresa May, who has succeeded David Cameron as prime minister of the United Kingdom. The photograph of the newly selected leader of the governing Conservative Party and the monarch who invited her to form a new government ... reaffirms that democracy in Britain, at least symbolically, is still subservient to inherited power. The mute postures of the two women - one deferential, the other munificent - are reminiscent of those depicted on a strange 16th-Century memorial in Bacton Church, Herefordshire: a sculpture that reminds us how secretive the pantomime of power has long been. Like the photo released by Buckingham Palace on Wednesday evening, the marble and alabaster work portrays a figure kneeling before royalty - in this case, the courtier Blanche Parry prostrating herself to Queen Elizabeth I. In time, Elizabeth would entrust Blanche with responsibilities that far exceeded her initial remit. What Elizabeth valued above all was loyalty of service - the kind of quality you demonstrate not with your mind, but with your knees. Today, the Queen has far fewer political gifts at her disposal than her Renaissance predecessor once dangled. Theresa May's courteous curtsy, therefore, in no serious sense echoes the obeisance shown by Blanche Parry to her Sovereign over four centuries ago. In stooping low, she reaches high.