Ladies took charge of the jewels actually in use by the Queen and accounted for them to the Jewel-house.[1] In addition there were the six Maids of Honour, who were not salaried officers, but girls of good birth, for whom the court served as a finishing school of manners, and who attended the Queen in public, sat and walked with her in the Privy Chamber and Privy Garden, and kept her entertained with the dancing which she delighted to witness. They were generally dressed in white, and were lodged in the Coffer Chamber under the care of a lady called the Mother of the Maids.[2] And they learnt other things at the court besides manners. Gossip is full of the troubles which Elizabeth underwent in the attempt to establish the cult of Cynthia amongst the maids of honour and the younger ladies of the Privy Chamber.[3] A few older ladies of rank, some of them relatives of the Queen, were also assigned lodgings in court, and were apparently known as Ladies of the Presence Chamber.[4]
The Outer Chamber was also supervised by Gentlemen Ushers, some in daily, others in quarterly waiting, with Grooms of the Chamber, headed by a Groom Porter, and Pages of the Chamber under them to maintain the apartments in order, Yeomen Ushers to keep the doors, and a body of Messengers of the Chamber, ranking with the Yeomen, who besides their domestic uses were at the disposal of the Privy Council and the Secretaries for political purposes, and become very numerous by the end of the reign.[5] The*
- ↑ Katharine Astley seems to have been First Lady in 1562 (Nichols, Eliz. i. 116), Katharine Howard, afterwards Lady Howard of Effingham, from 1572-87 (Sloane MS. 814; Nichols, i. 294; ii. 65, 251; Sp. P. ii. 661), and Dorothy Lady Stafford in 1587 (Sp. P. iv. 14). But Mary Ratcliffe had charge of the jewels from July 1587 to the end of Elizabeth's reign (Nichols, iii. 1, 445; Egerton Papers, 313; S. P. D. Jac. I, i. 79; Addl. MS. 5751, f. 222; Royal MS. Appendix, 68), apparently in succession to Blanche Parry.
- ↑ For the white dresses, cf. App. F; Sydney Papers, ii. 170; S. P. D. Eliz. cclxxxii. 48 (vol. iv, p. 114); L. Cust in Trans. Walpole Soc. iii. 12; for the lodging in the Coffer Chamber, doubtless where the 'sweet coffers' were kept, Sydney Papers, ii. 38. Elizabeth's predecessors, at least from the reign of Edward II (Tout, 280; cf. H. O. 44), had maintained some of the young lads who were royal wards at court under the name of Henchmen, but on 11 Dec. 1565 Francis Alen wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, i. 438), 'Her Highness hath of late, whereat some do much marvel, dissolved the ancient office of the Henchmen'.
- ↑ This may be exemplified from the histories of Robert Dudley and Mrs. Cavendish, of Walter Raleigh and Elizabeth Throgmorton, of Robert Tyrwhitt and Bridget Manners, of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon, of Essex and Elizabeth Brydges, Mary Howard, Elizabeth Russell and Elizabeth Southwell, and of Pembroke and Mary Fitton.
- ↑ Nichols, Eliz. ii. 24; Sp. P. i. 45; ii. 675.
- ↑ Philip Henslowe (ch. xi), George Bryan (ch. xv), and John Singer
