Chapter 6 - Rewards for Good Service

Summary

Finally, Chapter 6 reveals and analyzes the extensive rewards that ladies-in-waiting earned for fulfilling their normal duties as well as for loyally serving their mistresses during periods of national importance and political tension. Elite female servants benefitted from their positions at court, both in terms of material rewards and their ability to ease themselves into political situations. All female attendants earned some form of in-kind benefit, with room and board included for their service and formal clothing allowances distributed. Some servants garnered significant financial remuneration, through land grants assigned in perpetuity, expensive jeweled gifts, or extravagant annuity stipends. Others earned more modest wages, annuities, or gifts of secondhand clothing. When ladies and damsels scored patronage that offered nonmonetary privileges, they ranged from minor legal exemptions to significant pardoning of major crimes. Gift-giving redistributed wealth from monarch or aristocratic employer through lesser-status ranks in the household, but at the same time the theatricality of gift-giving and the allocation of sumptuous clothing linked to the royal or noble household enhanced the prestige of the bestower as they demonstrated their numerous, loyal servants and the affluence that allowed them to grant such gifts.