When William Byrd and John Bull collaborated in 1613 on a tribute to a royal marriage, they also honored a relatively young composer—Orlando Gibbons—by including his music. The wedding was the lavishly celebrated union of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, and the Imperial German Elector Palatine of the Rhine, Frederick V. For the nuptials, the principal musicians of James' court produced a printed collection of keyboard music: Parthenia, or the Maydenhead of the first Musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls. The title indicates the importance of the collection (and offers a rather overt pun on the Princess' wedding night), and several of the 21 pieces included offer their own homage to the wedding couple. Gibbons' contribution is no exception, though it does include the dance pair Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard, apparently in memory of the recently deceased Earl; his homage to the royal couple lies in the more celebratory character of other dances and in the specific composition known as The Queen's Command.

Though not marked as such, The Queen's Command stylistically resembles the courtship dance known in English aristocratic circles as the Coranto. Its lively hopping steps would conjure for contemporary listeners an image of flirtatious couples, appropriate to a matrimonial celebration. Gibbons composed music that glistens with rhythmic energy, with each repeat of a musical strain adding both energy and charm to its predecessor. After a pair of repeated strains, he then gives a double reprise of each, with double the rhythmic pace. Yet he is not content simply to double the rhythmic activity, but also breathes new life into each phrasal repeat by means of textural effects: the repeat of the first phrase this time involves great melodic sweeps through musical space, and the second strain alternates ornaments in the right and left hands (as if to further suggest in his music the coupling of the marital pair). As if that were not enough, he also may have embedded the specific identity of the betrothed in his music: the "command" danced in celebration of Elizabeth and Frederick subtly uses the notes E and F as its most important pitches.

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