The Court Circular, reporting on the moment today that Gordon Brown officially accepted the Queen's invitation to become Prime Minister, will officially record that "the Prime Minister Kissed Hands on Appointment".

But at the risk of disappointing fans of the Helen Mirren film "The Queen" - who will remember the moment when Tony Blair, played by the actor Michael Sheen, kissed the Queen's hand as he accepted office back in 1997 - Mr Brown did no such thing.

In fact - even if, at 58 minutes, the meeting did last much longer than expected - there was no more than a conversation and a handshake when Mr Brown visited Buckingham Palace this afternoon. The actual kissing of hands will take place later, the Palace says, at the next meeting of the Privy Council.

Equally, there were no formal declarations, no passing-over of seals of office, during the meeting before Mr Brown returned to Downing Street as Prime Minister.

The lack of ceremonial, compared to many of the other great occasions of State, underlines the fact that appointing a prime minister is one of the last remaining royal prerogatives - indeed the very office was only officially enshrined in the protocol back in 1805. It might be the voters who elect the prime minister - although not this time around - but it is to the monarch that he or she reports.

And for Mr Blair, who had the removal men in Downing Street today, the ceremony of his departure was equally simple.

After his final Prime Minister's Questions at midday - and a brief leaving drinks involving his closest staff - Mr Blair headed off to ask the Queen to remove him from office.

At around 1.15pm, he was collected from Downing Street in an armour-plated Pegasus limousine and driven the mile to Buckingham Palace. In the Palace's central quadrangle he was met by the Queen's traditional military assistant, known as the equerry, who greeted him with the exact words: 'Welcome, Prime Minister.'

It was the last time Mr Blair was referred to in that way.

The equerry led him up a staircase and into a waiting room, where - when the Queen called him in - he was escorted into a reception room by her private secretary, Sir Robin Janvrin.

After bowing and shaking hands, Mr Blair announced his resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, his ceremonial title.

As tradition dictates, the Queen then asked who she should call to replace him, and Mr Blair replied: 'Gordon Brown.'

The Queen then pressed a bell and summoned her equerry back to her office to collect Mr Blair, who was driven away from the scene, officially removed from his position by the Head of State and divested of his powers.

Mr Blair was not taken away in the same Pegasus limousine in which he arrived, which is reserved for the Prime Minister, but in another car. The Queen is believed to have given Mr Blair a gift to mark his departure.

A short while later Mr Brown was summoned to the Palace for the same procedure, but in reverse - and, after being appointed as Prime Minister in a meeting which lasted more than twice the length of Mr Blair's - was taken away in the Pegasus car.

Mr Brown is the 11th prime minister to serve under the Queen, who has got to know every Premier since Winston Churchill.

The office of prime minister was first developed when the Whig Robert Walpole became first minister in 1721 to run matters of state for George I, an absentee monarch who spoke no English and spent most of his time in Hanover, in his native Germany.

Although Walpole never called himself 'Prime Minister,' the role gradually evolved so that the term formally appeared in Government documents during Benjamin Disraeli's administration in the late-19th century.

In the event of a general election, the Queen would simply call in the leader of the party with the most seats, the man or woman most likely to "command the respect" of the Commons. In the event of a prime minister resigning, however, she simply asks him to name his successor.

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