By the time of Queen Alexandra maids of honour might lost a lot of her meaning at court.
To be a maid of honour of a queen (or a woman of powerful position, seldom enough) might have been a chance to get a training in ladylike behaviour, the etiquette and everything a wife of a nobleman at court needed to know, the chance to make contact to other people with connections (networking was important at all times) and with some luck a good match. Sometimes a queen could give a girl a jump-start, an orphan, or when the family had merits but no fortune. To give a generous present at wedding had its history in this. When a lady of the high nobility took a girl into her care in this way, it was also for her own benefit, since the girl's family was thereby obliged to her. That's the way politics work(ed).
An example is a young girl send in 1513 to the Netherlands at the court of the regent Margarete of Austria, a powerful, very well educated and clever woman. The father, a diplomat, was able to arranged for her to become a maid of honour to Margarete, who take care of her and gave the father reports of her progress and behaviour. Later she was transferred to France to the same position for Henry VIII. sister Mary, than Queen of France and after that to Queen Claude of France. She learned a lot and took her chances as well as she could. Her name was Anne Boleyn.
The maid of honour could not fulfil the same functions and doings as a lady in waiting because those took care of the needings of the body of the queen of which unmarried women were expected not to know of. They were ladies in training.
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