retable

The 12th century “Stavelot Retable,” loaned by Paris’ Cluny Museum, shows the Christian Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the 12 apostles, courtesy of beams of light radiating from above.

The bill will now go back to the Commons - where the government has confirmed it will retable the controversial elements removed by peers.

From the Westminster Retable altarpiece to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s marriage license, the items are exhibited along four themes - “Building Westminster Abbey”, “Worship and Daily Life”, “Westminster Abbey and the Monarchy” and “The Abbey and National Memory”.

They include the Westminster Retable, England’s oldest altarpiece, dating to the 13th century; the Litlyngton Missal, a magnificent illuminated 14th-century service book with instructions on celebrating Mass throughout the year; and a series of effigies of deceased kings and queens: wood or wax sculptures that were made just before or just after their deaths, and placed on their coffins in funeral processions.

They could change by the time the Supreme Court rules in January, however, and any Article 50 bill could also face trouble in parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords, although if it blocked the bill the government could retable it.