A maid of honour is a junior attendant to a queen in royal households, ranking below a lady-in-waiting. The equivalent title and office has historically been used in most European royal courts.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Maid of honour in the context of Las Meninas
Las Meninas (Spanish for 'The Ladies-in-waiting' pronounced [las meˈninas]) is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting for the way its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and for the uncertain relationship it creates between the viewer and the figures depicted.
The painting is believed by the art historian F. J. Sánchez Cantón to depict a room in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of Philip IV, and presents several figures, most identifiable from the Spanish court, captured in a particular moment as if in a snapshot. Some of the figures look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The five-year-old Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two little people and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velázquez looks outwards beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velázquez is shown working on.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Maid of honour
- 👉 Maid of honour in the context of Las Meninas
- Maid of honour in the context of Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan
- Maid of honour in the context of Royal mistress
- Maid of honour in the context of Anne Boleyn
- Maid of honour in the context of Louise de La Vallière
Maid of honour in the context of Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan (5 October 1640 – 27 May 1707), commonly known as Madame de Montespan (French: [madam də mɔ̃tɛspɑ̃]), was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV. During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to by contemporaries as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court. She was a great-grandmother to Louis Alexandre, Prince of Lamballe, who was the husband to Maria Luisa of Savoy, also known as the Princesse de Lamballe.
Born into the House of Rochechouart, one of the oldest noble families of France, Françoise-Athénaïs married the Marquis of Montespan in 1663. She then became a maid of honour to Princess Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans, and later a lady-in-waiting to Queen Maria Theresa. Noted for her great beauty and wit, she carefully cultivated a relationship with Louis XIV and eventually supplanted Louise de La Vallière as his favourite. She had seven children by the king, six of them later legitimised but only four survived infancy. She mostly entrusted her children to Madame Scarron, who as the Marquise de Maintenon was later to replace her in the king's affections.
Maid of honour in the context of Royal mistress
A royal mistress is the historical position and sometimes unofficial title of the extramarital lover of a monarch or an heir apparent, who was expected to provide certain services, such as sexual or romantic intimacy, companionship, and advice in return for security, titles, money, honours, and an influential place at the royal court. Thus, some royal mistresses have had considerable power, being the power behind the throne. The institution partly owes its prevalence to the fact that royal marriages used to be conducted solely on the basis of political and dynastic considerations, leaving little space for the monarch's personal preferences in the choice of a partner.
The title of royal mistress was never official, and most mistresses had an official reason to be at the court, such as being a lady-in-waiting or maid-of-honour to a female member of the royal family or a governess to the royal children. However, their real position was most often an open secret, and there was no real division between formal and informal political power in the early French court. From the 15th century onward and most importantly in France, chief mistresses gained a semi-official title (French: maîtresse-en-titre, literally "official mistress"), which came with its own assigned apartments in the palace. A chief mistress was also sometimes called a maîtresse déclarée, or "declared mistress". An unacknowledged, less important royal lover was known as a petite maîtresse ("little mistress").
Maid of honour in the context of Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn (/ˈbʊlɪn, bʊˈlɪn/; c. 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.
Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn (later Earl of Wiltshire), and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead, she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon. Early in 1523, Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, but the betrothal was broken off when the Earl refused to support it. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey refused the match in January 1524.
Maid of honour in the context of Louise de La Vallière
Françoise-Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Duchess of La Vallière and Vaujours (6 August 1644 – 6 June 1710) was a French noblewoman and the mistress of King Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667.
La Vallière joined the royal court in 1661 as maid-of-honour to Henrietta of England and soon became Louis XIV's mistress. Two of her four children by the King, Marie-Anne, Mademoiselle de Blois (Princess of Conti by marriage) and Louis, Count of Vermandois, survived infancy and were legitimised. She was an important participant in the court's intellectual life, interested in the arts, literature, and philosophy.