Maid of honour

• 1. Introduction

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  Maid of honour is a title that sounds almost theatrical today, and in one sense it literally was. In June 1600, the maids of honour of Queen Elizabeth I danced in a masque at the marriage of Anne Russell and Henry Somerset, with Mary Fitton taking a speaking part. That moment is recorded as one of the earliest instances of female theatrical performance in this context. But the role itself was far older, far more complex, and far more consequential than any single evening of dancing. Who were these women? What did it actually mean to serve a queen in this capacity? And what did a girl of nine or ten years old have to do with any of it?

• 2. Rank and Requirements

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  The defining rule of the maid of honour was written into the title itself: she had to be a maiden. That meant unmarried, and by the standards of the time, ostensibly a virgin. She was also expected to be young, noble, and usually at least in her sixteenth year. Yet the rule about age was applied loosely enough that Lady Jane Grey served as a maid of honour to Queen Catherine Parr in about 1546-48, when Jane was only around ten to twelve years old. Elizabeth Knollys entered court service as a maid of honour at the age of nine.

  The number of maids varied by the type of queen they served. Traditionally, a queen regnant had eight maids of honour, while a queen consort had four. Queen Anne Boleyn, for her part, had seven maids of honour and one mother of maids. An ordinance drawn up on the 20th of July 1603 for the English household of Anne of Denmark set out provision for six maids and a supervisory mother of maids, along with four chamberers. A 1604 letter from the Earl of Worcester described the actual appointments in the presence chamber: "for the presence chamber there ar nowe 5 maydes, Cary, Myddellmore, Woodhowse, Gargrave, Roper, the sixt is determyned but not come".

  Within the broader hierarchy of royal women, the maid of honour ranked below a lady-in-waiting. At Tudor and Stuart courts, the women in attendance included gentlewomen, maids of honour, and chamberers. The gentlewoman responsible for supervising the maids of honour held the title Mother of the Maids.

• 3. Court as Finishing School

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  Under Mary I and Elizabeth I, the court served the maids of honour in a particular way: it was, in practice, a finishing school aimed at securing a good marriage. The queen gave gifts of clothing to her maids of honour. Elizabeth I's recipients included the sisters Elizabeth and Anne Knollys, Margaret, Philadelphia, and Catherine Carey, and Frances and Elizabeth Howard.

  The masque of June 1600 shows just how broad the circle of maids could be at any one time. The other dancers alongside Mary Fitton were identified as "Lady Dougherty" (Dorothy Hastings), Mistress Carey, Mistress Onslow, Mistress Southwell, Bess Russell, Mistress Darcy, and Blanche Somerset. Elizabeth I herself joined the dance. In 1632, six maids of honour at the court of Henrietta Maria took part in the masque The Shepherd's Paradise, showing that theatrical participation remained part of court life across several reigns.

• 4. Pay, Pensions, and Property

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  Payment for maids of honour was inconsistent at best. The role did not always come with a fee or salary beyond the basic provision of board and lodging. In the seventeenth century, some maids received £10 yearly. Beyond that, there were grants, rewards, and property leases that generated what was known as "annual rent".

  In 1630, Cecilia Crofts gained pensions and an income drawn from duty on coal mines near Benwell. Some maids received dowries from the monarch directly. The financial picture was therefore a patchwork: a young noblewoman might enter service with no guaranteed income, but with the prospect of gifts, grants, and an eventual arranged match funded in part by the crown.

• 5. Later Honours and Coronation Duty

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  By the twentieth century, the role had evolved in its formal recognition. In 1912, King George V granted maids of honour the style of The Honourable, with precedence placed next after daughters of barons. That same year, Ivy Gordon-Lennox was appointed a maid of honour to Queen Alexandra.

  At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, six maids of honour attended her throughout the ceremony, with their chief duty being to carry the trains of her robes. They were Lady Moyra Hamilton, daughter of the Marquess of Hamilton; Lady Anne Coke, daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester; Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart, daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry; Lady Mary Baillie-Hamilton, daughter of the 12th Earl of Haddington; Lady Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ancaster; and Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the 10th Duke of Marlborough. All six came from the highest ranks of the British aristocracy, a continuity with the centuries-old requirement that a maid of honour be a member of the nobility.

  The title itself crossed the Atlantic in a different form: the American English term maid of honor, referring to the best friend of a bride who leads her bridal party, traces its origin directly to the royal office.