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]
Anne of Cleves brought a household with her to England,[2] and in 1540 "Mother Lowe" was the mother of the "Dowche Maydes".[3]
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]
Mary, Mistress Marshall, household of Anne Boleyn.[11][12] As Mother of the Maidens, she was given a gilt cruse or cup as a New Years Day gift in 1534.[13]
Mother Lowe, household of Anne of Cleves,[14] as mother of the "Dutch maids".[15]
Elizabeth Hyde, household of Elizabeth I, in 1575.[20]
Elizabeth Wingfield née Leche, half-sister of Bess of Hardwick and wife of Sir Anthony Wingfield (died 1593) a gentleman usher. Mother of the Maids between 1567 and 1598. Her second husband was George Pollard of Langley, an usher daily waiter and Black Rod under James VI and I.[21]
Elizabeth Jones (died 1608), household of Elizabeth I, with Blanche Parry in 1571.[22]
^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.
^John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of Calais (London: Camden Society, 1846), p. 172.
^Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
^Henry King, 'Ancient Wills, 3', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 3 (Colchester, 1865), p. 187.
^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.
^William Tighe, 'Familia reginae: the Privy Court', Susan Doran & Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 76, 79.
^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.
^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.
^James Gairdner & R. H. Brodie, Letters & Papers Henry VIII, vol. 15 (London, 1896), p. 9 no. 21.
^Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 74.
^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
^Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
^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
^David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1992), p. 355.
^The Manuscripts of S. H. Le Fleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall, HMC volume 12, Part 7 (London, 1890), pp. 9-10.
^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.
^Janet Arnold, 'Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I', Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), p. 738.
^Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majestie's Back (Wisbech: Daedalus, 1980), p. 54 no. 207.
^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.
^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.
^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.
^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.
^Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 141.
^John Somers, Tracts during the reign of King James I, p. 378.
^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.
^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.
