Much of John Dowland's life, for better or for worse, was dominated by his relationship to Queen Elizabeth I. From an early age, Dowland pursued a career in music, which meant angling for an eventual court post. By 1590 at the latest, Elizabeth knew of Dowland's music, for in this year we have the first record of it being sung to her. Later in 1592, Dowland himself may have been part of the musical entertainments sponsored by Lord Chandos for the visiting queen. Yet when her court had a job opening for a lute player in 1594, Dowland applied and was not hired (noone was hired). This was the first of many disappointments Dowland suffered at the hands of her court, and of her successor James I. It may be that Dowland's Catholic faith was a problem, though of course William Byrd's outspoken Catholicism did not prevent him from being a favorite of the Queen. Dowland also once was mixed up in potential treason by some English Catholics in Italy, though he promptly admitted his poor position to the Queen, and left them. Perhaps his personality just got in the way with the Queen. Certainly it was not any lack in Dowland's musical skill that prevented him from being hired; the Queen knew his music well, not only the songs but at least two pieces of lute music (including the Queen's Galliard) that bear her name.

The Queen's Galliard, as with much of the Elizabethan repertory in that genre, follows a popular dance form. Three strains, each exactly repeated, display the dance's characteristic skipping triple meter, with occasional hemiola patterns intruding; the dancers had a well-known five-step pattern to each measure of six eighth notes. Unlike in some of his lute solos, Dowland does not add difficult running ornamental notes on phrase repeats (at least not in the version that survives in manuscript), but rather deploys his notes with graceful clarity. He does tinge the dance with hints of sadness, however, both by the richly "flat" minor key and by crafting the first strain above a harmonic foundation that outlines a descending melodic fourth, known as an "emblem of grief" at the time. The final strain provides an elegant melodic rounding by bringing the same descending fourth back, and at the same time introducing the climactic highest note of the piece.

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