Chapter 4 - Ritual and Ceremony

Summary

Chapter 4 explores the kinds of extraordinary situations experienced in the lives of royal ladies-in-waiting, asserting their prominent roles in coronations, marriages, christenings, and other ceremonies designed to cement and further dynastic prestige, such as Order of the Garter tournaments and the Field of Cloth of Gold extravaganza. Serving the queen at important life-cycle rituals, seasonal events, and diplomatic spectacles contributed to the monarchy’s propaganda program, thereby bolstering royal authority and encouraging dynastic loyalty. When kings dispatched their daughters and sisters to foreign lands, their entourages signaled the wealth and status of the English monarchy. Highborn female attendants not only assisted the queen and female royals, but also reinforced hierarchical order by their very placement in these rituals, order that was displayed, I argue, both in processions and their particular assigned responsibilities. This chapter reveals how the spectacle of such pageantry had significant political dimensions, even if such was not always recognized by the subjects who witnessed royal processions.