Elizabeth I's Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids: The Women who Served the Tudor Queen

Examines Queen Elizabeth I’s influential ladies, gentlewomen, and maids who shaped her court and reign.

‘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’...