The Order of Merit was founded in 1902 to recognise outstanding contributions to the arts and sciences, armed services and politics, and since 1987 The Queen has commissioned portraits of members of the Order. Owen Chadwick (b.1916; appointed to the Order in 1983) is the leading ecclesiastical historian of our time. Chadwick described his portrait as ‘a green tough clerical Machiavelli. I hope I’m not like that inside but it’s great fun to be it outside.’