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] Anne Poyntz died in 1554, and Dorothy Broughton was appointed in her place as Mother of the Maidens. Dorothy Broughton returned to court from Woodstock Palace where she was serving in the household of Lady Elizabeth, then in the care of Henry Bedingfeld. Margaret Morton was sent to Woodstock to fill Broughton's place. [5]

At the coronation of Elizabeth I in 1559 there were six maids of honour under the Mother of the Maids. [6]

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. [7]

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 . [8] 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. [9]

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. ↑ Frank A. Munby, The girlhood of Queen Elizabeth (Houghton Mifflin, 1909), p. 141: Acts of the Privy Council, 5 (London: HMSO, 1892), pp. 29–30.
  6. ↑ William Tighe, 'Familia reginae: the Privy Court', Susan Doran & Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 76, 79.
  7. ↑ HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ James Gairdner & R. H. Brodie, Letters & Papers Henry VIII, vol. 15 (London, 1896), p. 9 no. 21.
  11. ↑ Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 74.
  12. ↑ Sophie Bacchus-Waterman, "Mrs Marshall: The Identity of the Mother of the Maidens in Anne Boleyn’s Household", The Court Historian, 29:3 (November 2024), pp. 211-218. doi : 10.1080/14629712.2024.2419790
  13. ↑ Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", The Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), p. 157 fn. 227. doi : 10.1017/S0003581500074382
  14. ↑ Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
  15. ↑ Sophie Bacchus-Waterman, "Mrs Marshall: The Identity of the Mother of the Maidens in Anne Boleyn’s Household", The Court Historian, 29:3 (November 2024), p. 212. doi : 10.1080/14629712.2024.2419790
  16. ↑ David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1992), p. 355.
  17. ↑ The Manuscripts of S. H. Le Fleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall, HMC volume 12, Part 7 (London, 1890), pp. 9-10.
  18. ↑ 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.
  19. ↑ Janet Arnold, 'Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I', Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), p. 738.
  20. ↑ Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majestie's Back (Wisbech: Daedalus, 1980), p. 54 no. 207.
  21. ↑ Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), p. 110: Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 100.
  22. ↑ 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.
  23. ↑ HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672
  24. ↑ 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.
  25. ↑ 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.
  26. ↑ Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 141.
  27. ↑ John Somers, Tracts during the reign of King James I, p. 378.
  28. ↑ 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.
  29. ↑ 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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