Mother of the Maids (English royal court)

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Mother of the Maids was a position at the English royal court. The Mother of the Maids was responsible for the well-being and decorum of maids of honour, young gentlewomen in the household of a queen regnant or queen consort. [1]

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Anne of Cleves brought a household with her to England, [2] and in 1540 "Mother Lowe" was the mother of the "Dowche Maydes". [3] Anne Poyntz was given a "billiment" head dress to wear at the coronation of Mary I of England, and took part in the Royal Entry. [4] At the coronation of Elizabeth I in 1559 there were six maids of honour under the Mother of the Maids. [5]

An ordinance for the English household of Anne of Denmark made on 20 July 1603 allows for six maids (of honour) and a mother (of maids) and four chamberers. [6]

In 1632, the Mother of Maids, Ursula Beaumont, and six maids of honour at the court of Henrietta Maria took part in the masque The Shepherd's Paradise . [7] When one of the maids, Eleanor Villiers, a daughter of Edward Villiers, was pregnant, she, her partner Henry Jermyn, and Beaumont, Mother of the Maids, were imprisoned in the Tower of London. [8]

Mothers of the maids

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References

  1. ↑ Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. 6 (Philadelphia, 1847), p. 310: William John Thoms, The Book of the Court: Exhibiting the History, Duties, and Privileges of the several ranks of the English nobilty (London: Bohn, 1844), p. 350.
  2. ↑ John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of Calais (London: Camden Society, 1846), p. 172.
  3. ↑ Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
  4. ↑ Henry King, 'Ancient Wills, 3', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 3 (Colchester, 1865), p. 187.
  5. ↑ William Tighe, 'Familia reginae: the Privy Court', Susan Doran & Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 76, 79.
  6. ↑ HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672.
  7. ↑ Sarah Poynting, 'Henrietta Maria's Notorious Whores', Clare McManus, Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 163–64.
  8. ↑ Sarah Poynting, 'Henrietta Maria's Notorious Whores', Clare McManus, Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 176–77.
  9. ↑ James Gairdner & R. H. Brodie, Letters & Papers Henry VIII, vol. 15 (London, 1896), p. 9 no. 21.
  10. ↑ Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 74.
  11. ↑ Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
  12. ↑ David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1992), p. 355.
  13. ↑ The Manuscripts of S. H. Le Fleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall, HMC volume 12, Part 7 (London, 1890), pp. 9-10.
  14. ↑ Jane Lawson, 'Ritual of the New Year's Gift', Valerie Schutte & Jessica S. Hower, Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), p. 181: David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 192, 355.
  15. ↑ Janet Arnold, 'Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I', Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), p. 738.
  16. ↑ Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majestie's Back (Wisbech: Daedalus, 1980), p. 54 no. 207.
  17. ↑ Jane Lawson, 'Ritual of the New Year's Gift', Valerie Schutte & Jessica S. Hower, Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), p. 180.
  18. ↑ HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672
  19. ↑ Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London, 1990), p. 69: Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), p. 228.
  20. ↑ Nadine Akkerman, 'The Goddess of the Household: The Masquing Politics of Lucy Harington-Russell, Countess of Bedford', The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2014), p. 307.
  21. ↑ Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 141.
  22. ↑ John Somers, Tracts during the reign of King James I, p. 378.
  23. ↑ Caroline Hibbard, 'Henrietta Maria in the 1630s', Ian Atherton & Julie Sanders, The 1630s: Interdisciplinary Essays on Culture and Politics in the Caroline Era (Manchester, 2006), p. 104: Sarah Poynting, 'Henrietta Maria's Notorious Whores', Clare McManus, Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 164.
  24. ↑ Henry B. Wheatley, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, vol. 2 (New York: Random House), p. 1027: John Stow, A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, vol. 2 (London, 1753), p. 574.
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