Mother of the Maids (English royal court)

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] At the Tudor court, the Mother of Maids or Mother of Maidens was supposed to act to high and impeachable moral standards, so portraying the Queens household as a place of virtue.^[2]

Households of the Tudor queens

Anne of Cleves brought a household with her to England,^[3] and in 1540 "Mother Lowe" was the mother of the "Dowche Maydes".^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

At the coronation of Elizabeth I in 1559 there were six maids of honour under the Mother of the Maids.^[7]

Stuart courts

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.^[8]

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.^[9] 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.^[10]

Mothers of the maids

• Elizabeth Chamber or Stonor, to the consorts of Henry VIII.^[11]
• Mary, Mistress Marshall, household of Anne Boleyn.^[12][13] As Mother of the Maidens, she was given a gilt cruse or cup as a New Years Day gift in 1534.^[14]
• Mother Lowe, household of Anne of Cleves,^[15] as mother of the "Dutch maids".^[16]
• Anne Poyntz (died 1554), household of Mary I of England.^[17]
• Elizabeth Hutton, household of Mary I.^[18]
• Dorothy Broughton, household of Mary I in 1557,^[19] may have been Dorothy, the wife of Sir Robert Broughton and the sister of Margery Wentworth, and through her the aunt of Jane Seymour.
• Mistress Morris, household of Elizabeth I of England in 1558.^[20]
• Kat Ashley or Katherine Ashley, household of Elizabeth I
• Anne Aglionby, household of Elizabeth I
• Elizabeth Hyde, household of Elizabeth I, in 1575.^[21]
• 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.^[22]
• Elizabeth Jones (died 1608), household of Elizabeth I, with Blanche Parry in 1571.^[23]
• Katherine Bridges, household of Anne of Denmark.^{[24][25][26][27]} She received a free gift of £100 in 1611.^[28]
• Elizabeth or Ursula Beaumont, household of Henrietta Maria.^[29]
• Bridget Sanderson, wife of William Sanderson of the king's privy chamber, a daughter of Edward Tyrrell, household of Catherine of Braganza.^[30]

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. 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. 211. doi:10.1080/14629712.2024.2419790
3. John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of Calais (London: Camden Society, 1846), p. 172.
4. Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
5. Henry King, 'Ancient Wills, 3', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 3 (Colchester, 1865), p. 187.
6. 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.
7. William Tighe, 'Familia reginae: the Privy Court', Susan Doran & Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 76, 79.
8. HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. James Gairdner & R. H. Brodie, Letters & Papers Henry VIII, vol. 15 (London, 1896), p. 9 no. 21.
12. Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 74.
13. 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
14. Maria Hayward, "Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII", The Antiquaries Journal, 85 (2005), p. 157 fn. 227. doi:10.1017/S0003581500074382
15. Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 307.
16. 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
17. David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1992), p. 355.
18. The Manuscripts of S. H. Le Fleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall, HMC volume 12, Part 7 (London, 1890), pp. 9-10.
19. 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.
20. Janet Arnold, 'Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I', Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), p. 738.
21. Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majestie's Back (Wisbech: Daedalus, 1980), p. 54 no. 207.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 672
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), 141.
28. John Somers, Tracts during the reign of King James I, p. 378.
29. 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.
30. 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.

External links

• Ladies in waiting and maids of honour: The History Jar
• Monument of William Sanderson, Westminster Abbey