Ladies-in-Waiting: From The Tudors to the Present Day

Far from being servants or decorative accessories in court ladies-in-waiting competed for real positions of power--and many succeeded in their goals sometimes betraying their queens in the process. A few even became royal mistresses such as the rapacious Lady Castlemaine who amassed a fortune and flaunted her hold over King Charles I. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources including the diaries of such shrewd onlookers as Lady Cowper and Fanny Burney bestselling author Anne Somerset provides a guide to the character profligate or pious of each court. This lively combination of entertaining anecdote and searching analysis is social history at its most colorful. "...provides a wealth of juicy anecdotal material..."--The New York Times