Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day
Somerset, Anne

Softcover, $14.95
ISBN 0-75381-987-2
Phoenix Press, 2005.
342 pages.

' . . . a naughty knickers version of our island story' Auberon Waugh, Daily Mail.

"Anne Somerset's gossipy Ladies in Waiting provides a wealth of juicy anecdotal material about five centuries of court life from Henry VIII to Elizabeth II' New York Times

Back cover: "For centuries the most beautiful, able and aristocratic women in England competed for position at court. Some were drawn by the prospect of political power. Lucy, Countess of Carlisle, for instance, succeeded in acquiring the confidence of Charles I's French wife, Henrietta Maria, only to betray the Queen to her enemies in Parliment. Some ladies-in-waiting became royal mistresses, such as the rapacious Lady Castlemaine who amassed a fortune and flaunted her hold over Charles II. Others came to court to find husbands only to discover that they were denied permission to marry by their sovereign.

This colourful and entertaining social history is the first full-scale study of ladies-in-waiting at the English royal court from Tudor times until the 20th century. Drawing on an enormous variety of sources including the diaries of such shrewd onlookers as Lady Anne Clifford, Lady Cowper and Fanny Burney, Anne Somerset provides an illuminating guide to the character, profligate or pious, of each court." This book includes notes, index, and a great bibliography.

Cover Art: Tapestry of the thermal baths at Cluny, National Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris.