‘What do you think of my ladies?’ Queen Elizabeth I is said to have asked a visitor to her court. The visitor, an experienced courtier, is said to have given the perfect answer: ‘It is hard to judge of stars in the presence of the sun’.

Although overlooked for centuries, as the eye of history has been on the chivalrous and stately men who surrounded the Virgin Queen, the women of the Queen’s world, who attended upon her in public and in private, were of no less influence and sway than the more famous men around her.

Indeed, the women of the Queen’s inner circle were far more than just attendants. They were the Queen’s friends and confidantes, her all-important support network in a treacherous political world, and by blood or by bond they were her ‘family’. This book tells their stories, the stories of the Queen’s ladies, gentlewomen and maids who, between them, served her from the cradle to the grave.

From governesses to laundresses, this book features them all, with a comprehensive overview of the main positions of attendance accompanied by a biographical index of all the women known to have served the Queen over the course of her life and reign, from the matronly ladies who headed her nursery to the vivacious maids who dazzled her court with their wit and beauty.