Maid of honour

Maids of honour is a term for the junior attendants of a queen in royal households, especially those of England and later of the United Kingdom. The position was and is junior to the lady-in-waiting.

Role

Traditionally, a queen regnant had eight maids of honour, while a queen consort had four; Queen Anne Boleyn, however, had over 60.

A maid of honour was a maiden, meaning that she was unmarried, and was usually young. Maids of honour were commonly in their sixteenth year or older, although Lady Jane Grey, served as a maid of honour to Queen Catherine Parr in about 1546–48, when Jane was only about ten to twelve years old. Under Mary I and Elizabeth I, maids of honour were at court as a kind of finishing school, with the hope of making a good marriage. Elizabeth Knollys was a maid of the court at the age of nine.

Some of the maids of honour were paid, while others were not. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the term maid of honour in waiting was sometimes used.

The queen mother often also had maids of honour. In 1915, for example, Ivy Gordon-Lennox was appointed a maid of honour to Queen Alexandra.