This article discusses the court title. For the ceremonial position in a wedding, see bridesmaid

Bridesmaid

The bridesmaids are members of the bride's wedding party in a wedding. A bridesmaid is typically a young woman, and often a close friend or sister. She attends to the bride on the day of a wedding or marriage ceremony...

. For the 2008 movie see Made of Honor

Made of Honor

Made of Honor is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Paul Weiland and story written by Adam Sztykiel . It was produced by Neal H. Moritz and was released by Columbia Pictures in North America on May 2, 2008...

.

Maids of honour were the junior attendants of a queen in the royal households

Royal Household

A Royal Household in ancient and medieval monarchies formed the basis for the general government of the country as well as providing for the needs of the sovereign and his relations....

 of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and later of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Anne of Brittany

Anne of Brittany

Anne, Duchess of Brittany , also known as Anna of Brittany , was a Breton ruler, who was to become queen to two successive French kings. She was born in Nantes, Brittany, and was the daughter of Francis II, Duke of Brittany and Margaret of Foix. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Eleanor of...

 is said to have instituted the queen's maids of honour at the court.

Role

Traditionally, a queen regnant

Queen regnant

A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire....

 had eight maids of honour, while a queen consort

Queen consort

A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...

 had four; Queen Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

, however, had over 60.

A maid of honour was a maiden, meaning that she was unmarried, and was usually young. Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey , also known as The Nine Days' Queen, was an English noblewoman who was de facto monarch of England from 10 July until 19 July 1553 and was subsequently executed...

, for example, served as a maid of honour to Queen Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr ; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him...

 in about 1546-48, when Jane was only about ten to twelve years old.

Maids of honour should not be confused with maids of the court. Maids of honour were almost always in their sixteenth year or older. Anne Bassett

Anne Bassett

Anne Bassett was an English courtier of the Tudor period, whose charms attracted the attention of King Henry VIII.-Family background:Anne was born in 1521, the fourth child of Sir John Bassett and Honor...

 was deemed too young to be a maid of honour to Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

, but she gained a place under Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...

. Under Mary I

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 and Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

, 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.

A queen mother

Queen mother

Queen Mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that marriage is the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since at least 1577...

 often also had maids of honour. In 1915, for example, Ivy Gordon-Lennox

Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland

Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland DBE , born Ivy Gordon-Lennox, was Duchess of Portland from 1943 to 1977 and afterwards Dowager Duchess. She founded the Harley Foundation, "to encourage creativity"....

 was appointed a maid of honour to Queen Alexandra

Alexandra of Denmark

Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...

.

At her coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

, Queen Elizabeth II had maids of honour who attended her throughout the ceremony, especially carrying the trains of her robes.

Terminology

The term lady-in-waiting

Lady-in-waiting

A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...

describes a woman who attends a female member of the Royal Family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...

 other than the queen regnant or queen consort. An attendant upon one of the latter is a lady of the bedchamber

Lady of the Bedchamber

This is an incomplete list of those who have served as Lady of the Bedchamber in the British Royal Household...

or woman of the bedchamber

Woman of the Bedchamber

In the Royal Household of the United Kingdom the term Woman of the Bedchamber is used to describe a woman attending either a queen regnant or queen consort, in the role of Lady-in-Waiting...

, and the senior lady-in-waiting is the mistress of the robes

Mistress of the Robes

The Mistress of the Robes is the senior lady of the British Royal Household. Formerly responsible for the Queen's clothes and jewellery, the post now has the responsibility for arranging the rota of attendance of the Ladies in Waiting on the Queen, along with various duties at State ceremonies...

. The women of the bedchamber are in regular attendance, but the mistress of the robes and the ladies of the bedchamber are normally only required for ceremonial occasions.

The term maid of honour is the origin of the American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 term maid of honor, usually the best friend of a bride who leads her bridal party.