num_pages: 368
description: 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 II. 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.
language: English
title: Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day
titlecomplete: Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day
genres: British Literature, Historical, History, 18th Century, Tudor Period, Research, Biography, 17th Century, Nonfiction, Womens
ratings_count: 299
publisher: Alfred A Knopf Inc/Borzoi