[In the following essay, Draper examines the dramatic functions fulfilled by ladies-in-waiting—high-born women attendants of noblewomen—in Shakespeare's plays.]

From the feudal Middle Ages, the Elizabethans inherited a supposedly fixed scheme of society in which each generation of the noble, and even of the bourgeois, classes was trained in a sort of apprenticeschip to occupy its special niche in the immutable order of things. The knight's or nobleman's son became a page usually at seven, and about fourteen, a servingman, generally in the household of his father's suzerain, where he was supposed to be perfected in courtesy and arms: Chaucer's Squire shows how well this sometimes worked; and Havelok the Dane, how badly. The nobleman's daughter, likewise, became in due course a lady-in-waiting to the suzerain's wife until her father, if he could, raised the needful dowery for her marriage. This arrangement had much to say for it if the suzerain did his part and the father had the money or the influence to get knighthood and all its accoutrements for the youth at twenty-one and an appropriate portion for the maid sometime in her teens; but, as this was not always the case, the kings and dukes and counts both in the Middle Ages and later in the Renaissance were surrounded by wellborn servitors who were not supposed to be subject to menial labor, but, like Borachio and Conrade in Much Ado, might find that their lord's service led them into dishonorable doings far worse than Havelok's job as a kitchen-boy and at times as disreputable as Falstaff's. Each queen also had her ladies-in-waiting, who like Elizabeth's Maids of Honor often lived frustrated lives with little hope of marriage; for the Virgin Queen expected her attendants to be as virgin as herself. Elizabeth's Maids of Honor amused her with singing, wit and games, joined in dances, supplied elegant background at great court functions, and might sub rosa play at politics by passing on gossip and confidential oddments, even to foreign ambassadors, for a price. In short their fathers might indeed find it more convenient to keep them within earshot of the Sovereign rather than to dower them.

Though Shakespeare's Company did not achieve the official status of Grooms of the Royal Chamber until after the accession of King James, they enjoyed Elizabeth's high favor, often playing before her; and, as Shakespeare became more knowledgeable of the court, he must have come to understand this old feudal custom that so clearly separated the serving gentry from the servants—an understanding not always shared by his later editors and critics. Indeed, the basis of Twelfth Night is the plot of the well-born Sir Toby, Maria and Fabyan to defeat Malvolio's upstart plan to marry the Countess Olivia. Ladies-in-waiting, generally as minor characters, are common enough in the plays: a few seem to be merely alluded to as when Miranda in The Tempest remembers, "Four or five women once that tended me"; some are merely noted in the stage directions like the "attendants" on Theseus and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream; and a few, like Fabyan in Twelfth Night and probably Reynaldo in Hamlet are actually mis-described in Rowe's Dramatis Personae, which is followed by most editors, as mere "servants". As a matter of fact, eleven ladies-in-waiting have speaking parts in eight of Shakespeare's comedies; two in the chronicle histories; and four, in the tragedies—altogether seventeen in fourteen plays. Great ladies could not get along without gentlefolk to send on errands to other great ladies—and neither could the playwrights. Drama, furthermore, often required a confidante to whom the heroine could tell her inmost thoughts, and so tell the audience also. The great lady, moreover, generally enters "attended", and this gave her the pomp and circumstance that was politically necessary to impress the vulgar, so that even if the lady-in-waiting says little, she adds emphasis to the scene; for she impresses also the vulgar in the audience. Love's Labor's, perhaps Shakespeare's earliest play, had three such ladies; and one appears even in A Comedy of Errors, though it is Roman in both source and setting; and at the end of the playwright's career comes one in Henry VIII. Surely a review should be attempted of these gentlewomen, so serviceable both in Elizabethan life and on the Elizabethan stage.

Critics' neglect of Elizabethan social background has obscured the fact that the comedies of Shakespeare's first and second periods are generally realistic in style character, and theme—sometimes realistic of the court and of courtly conversation, sometimes a contrasting realism of less exalted social levels. Love's Labor's shows the sunny facade of courtly life as seen, with no great depth of understanding, by an outsider lately come up from the provinces. Beside the amorous Don Armado, the plot concerns five pairs of lovers headed by King of Navarre and the Princess of France, each of whom is served by three highborn attendants. The complications of the plot are slight; and the play depends on its style, lyrical persiflage among the gentles and salty parody and satire among the others. The diplomatic mission of the Princess seems to be only an excuse for puns and pasquinades. They hunt, they masquerade; and taking a term from the lordly game of tennis, their meeting is a "set of wit well played"; and the Princess takes the love-making lightly as "pleasant jest and courtesy" (V, ii, 29, 768). Thus in fact did courtiers amuse royalty-on-holiday and since the plot seems to be Shakespeare's own, so are the lords and ladies.

A Comedy of Errors has Luce, "servant" to Adriana and perhaps a gentlewoman; but her part is slight. Two Gentlemen of Verona supplies Lucetta, who waits upon Julia. She seems to be a preliminary study for Nerissa in The Merchant; she favors Proteus, as Nerissa does Bassanio; and her mistress calls her "a good broker" (i.e. galeotto). Nerissa is Portia's confidante, helps her review her lovers, perhaps gives her favorite a hint regarding the caskets, and rejoices at his success. She goes to Venice as Portia's law-clerk, introduces the learned advocate at the trial, and parallels Portia's stratagem in the Ring Episode. Her part in the plot is small; but she is an expert confidante and essential to our understanding of Portia. Jessica is apparently either not aristocratic enough to have a lady-in-waiting, or not important enough in the play to require a confidante, or Shylock was too stingy. In As You Like It, Celia and Rosalind confide in one another, and so need not be encumbered with ladies-in-waiting in the Forest; but Much Ado, somewhat needlessly, has two, both serving Hero. Apparently, Beatrice is too independent to need a "waiting-gentlewoman" (II, i, 23). Margaret bandies wit with Benedick and Beatrice; and Ursula runs errands for her mistress; Margaret provides the complication of the Hero plot; and they both help to bring about a happy ending by convincing Benedick that Beatrice loves him. None of the waiting ladies in these early comedies is of major importance in their respective plays, or greatly influences the plot, or has a sharply complex personality.

Maria, however, in Twelfth Night, is and does, all these things. Though Sir Toby calls her "My niece's chambermaid" (I, iii, 47), she is without question gently born; for, with the approval of all concerned, she finally marries a knight, this same Sir Toby: and all concerned were much concerned that class distinctions be preserved. Like the other realistic characters in the play, she seems to be entirely Shake-speare's own. She has a speaking part in six of the eighteen scenes, and delivers 169 lines and part lines, whereas even Nerissa has only a hundred and ten. She appears in every activity proper to her station, can hold her own in wit with the jester Feste, can ensnare the laggard knight Sir Toby into the toils of marriage, can make Malvolio a figure of fun before the Countess and her household, and so uphold the sacred system of social class. She does not play at politics, but no extramarital politics are in the play. To be sure, she cannot quell Sir Toby's drunken riot; and when the play begins, she does not extract from Feste, where and why he has been absent; but Feste joins with the gentles against Malvolio; and Maria has made herself so essential to her mistress that when Sir Toby at last gives up his match-making between Olivia and Sir Andrew, he decides instead to stake the future of his "cakes and ale" on marrying this indispensible lady-in-waiting; and so she achieves her purpose of becoming the Lady of a knight.

Most of these gentlewomen are Shakespeare's own additions to his sources; and they present a wide variety of dramatic uses: some are mere silent background or run occasional errands; some bandy wit, or take the place of confidante or chorus. In Love's Labor's, each of the three attendants on the Princess repeats her words and actions, and so makes a vaguely limned echo-plot. Lucetta in Two Gentlemen and Nerissa in The Merchant promote the major love affair; Margaret in Much Ado helps both the complication and the resolution of the plot; and Maria in Twelfth Night at once manages her own affaire with Sir Toby and saves Olivia the trouble of rejecting the upstart Malvolio, much to the merriment of her co-conspirators and of the audience. By the time that Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night, doubtless in the fall of 1600, he had come to understand the workings of a noble household and the well-born ladies who were the eyes and ears and hands of its noble mistress.

The chronicle history plays, the problem comedies and the romances seem to have little space for ladies-in-waiting. In Act III of Richard II, one of the ladies of the unhappy Queen offers to amuse her with bowls, dancing, tales or singing, but to no purpose; and, in Act V, "Ladies" accompany her, but have no speaking part. In Henry V, (III, iv), Alice, who attends the royalty of France, has been to England, and so gives her mistress a lesson of sorts in English; and later (V, ii), "Alice and other Ladies" are present, but do not speak. In Henry VIII ( I , iv), Anne Bullen, then a "Maid of Honor" to Queen Katharine, jokes with Lord Sands at Wolsey's "banquet"; and the King enters and greets her, as custom permitted, with a kiss. Later (II, iii) she declares that she cares nothing for nobility, but she accepts the marquisate of Pembroke with alacrity. When Queen Katharine and her women are "at work" (III, i), the Queen asks one to take her lute and sing; and, as Katharine falls out of favor, her "woman" Patience notes her sickly looks and cries. "Heaven comfort her!" The problem plays and the romances have little more to offer. In All's Well, Helena, described by Rowe as "a gentlewoman protected by the Countess", is hardly a gentlewoman since her father seems to have been a mere physician; and she is not shown acting or speaking as a lady-in-waiting. In A Winter's Tale, Hermoine's attendants bandy broad jests with Mamilius (II, i); and one of them, Emilia, tells Paulina of Perdita's birth. In Cymbeline, the Queen has her "Ladies" (I, v); and Helen attend on Imogen (II, iii); and Cloten bribes "a Lady" with "gold" (II, iii); but all of these examples are rather incidental to the plays where they occur.

The tragedies offer some oddments and two fuller treatments of the type. The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet is clearly not a lady but a nurse and so may be ruled out. In Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia have no high-born attendants; and this is strange, for Shakespeare takes the setting of the play out of the Dark Ages of history and puts it in the contemporary Renaissance. In Macbeth, the gentlewoman that watches the Queen in the Sleepwalking Scene appears but once, talks with the physician, but does nothing. In Coriolanus, Virgilia has a "gentlewoman" who announces Valeria's visit and then ushers her in (I, iii), and later (V, iii) is probably among the attendants of her mistress, but has no speaking part.

Othello, however, has the only lady-in-waiting who can compare in importance with Maria. Though in the first act, Emilia is not on the stage, the Moor brings her to the attention of the spectators by suggesting that she attend Desdemona on the trip to Cyprus; and, though as the wife of an "ancient", she hardly has gentle status, she appears throughout the later acts as Desdemona's lady-in-waiting. Like Nerissa and Maria, she is Shakespeare's own addition to the old story, and therefore especially important, for such additions must have had special reason. She appears in seven of the fifteen scenes, and speaks 245 lines and part-lines— more than twice the number spoken by Nerissa. Early in Act II, while Desdemona awaits Othello's arrival, Emilia helps to introduce the conversazione on womanhood that helps while away the time for her mistress. After Cassio's dismissal from his lieutenancy, she encourages him (according to army custom) to use Desdemona for regaining the general's favor, and so lays the foundation for Othello's jealousy. In the handkerchief episode, furthermore, she plays a major part, and so, unwittingly, enrages him still more. When Othello demands the "napkin" of his wife, Emilia says. "Is not this man jealous?" (III, iv, 100), but Desdemona, secure in her innocence, refuses to believe it. Later, the Moor vainly questions her about his wife's doings, and has her watch the door while he upbraids Desdemona, and when he leaves insultingly offers her a tip. In the talk that follows between the two women Emilia reminds us of Desdemona's happy past in Venice:

Hath she forsook so many noble matches.
Her father and her country and her friends,
To be call'd whore? would it not make one
 weep?

She blames the present pass on "Some busy and insinuating rogue", such as had made Iago suspect her "with the Moor." She prepares her lady's bed, and delivers a long diatribe against jealousy. Early in Act V, she is present just after Roderigo is killed, and virtuously calls Cassio's Bianca "strumpet"; and Bianca replies that gossip says that Emilia is no better. In the final scene, just after Othello has killed Desdemona, she insists on entering to tell him that Cassio is wounded and Roderigo dead. Othello admits that he has smothered his wife, and threatens Emilia when she defends Desdemona's honor. Emilia calls for help; others come in; and Emilia supplies the key that reveals Iago's plots. Thus she not only helps to cause the. initial tragic situation but also brings about the solution and catastrophe, her mistress' murder and the Moor's suicide. As a serving lady, she is less characteristic than Nerissa but has greater influence on the plot. Indeed, she is, though inadvently, more important to Iago's plots than is Iago himself: in this respect her only rival is Maria.

Both of these two have individualized personalities beyond the mere fact of their social station; and both have parallel, yet different parts in the play's action. Maria is a not-too-well-born gentlewoman come down to the earth-earthy with her feet firm on the ground and her purpose concentrated on the pursuit of a proper—or if need be, not quite proper—husband; Emilia is the substantial product of a lower social class but the admirer of a gentility that she willingly accepts when Iago's good fortune brings it. Maria defends her social place and pursues her hope (Sir Toby) with schrewd psychological warfare, her one recourse in the absence of an energetic father with the required dowery; Emilia, after having been the somewhat stupid, and unintentional cause of her noble mistress' ruin, risks even her life to defend that mistress despite threats of master and of husband. Maria and her not-too-enamored lover largely govern the plot of Twelfth Night; Emilia and her husband are the only begetters of the course and the catastrophe of Othello: both are those gods from the machine, those upper servitors who, with or without intention, make or unmake the lives of the exalted. Maria accomplishes her aim; and Sir Toby changes from making a joke with Sir Andrew of her amatory intentions (I, iii, 43-75) to taking the matrimonial yoke for the practical reasons of "cakes and ale." Emilia is less shrewd but more unselfish and more loyal to her mistress, but she sees her lady's predicament too late, and then bewails rather than remedies it; she can understand the cruder mind of Iago but hardly the noble passion of the princely Moor; and she fails in saving her lady's marriage, and so brings on tragedy.

Plutarch's Life of Antony mentions Cleopatra's two ladies-in-waiting, Charmian and Iras, only as dying with their mistress; but in Shakespeare's play, they are her constant attendants, even when they have no speaking part. Charmian is the more important, and has 109 lines and part-lines; Iras has thirty. Like the "Ladies" of the Princess in Love's Labors, they lend awe and majesty to Cleopatra's royal station; they run her errands; and Charmian advises her in her conduct of the love affair with Antony and her final retreat to the monument. At the bitter news of his marriage to Octavia, Charmian tries to cheer her with remembrance of the counterfeit fishing party when the Queen's diver put a salted fish on his hook (II, v, 15-18). Charmian also attends to the matter of the asp by which the Queen kills herself; and both of them, as Plutarch had told, commit suicide with their mistress. In their first scene with the Soothsayer, Charmian persuades him to reveal her future, and his ambiguous oracle suggests the tragic catastrophe. Like Shakespeare's other ladies in-waiting, these two show loyalty to their mistress; but they have hardly any other trait of character: one can only guess what they thought of Antony and Caesar and the other barbarian Romans who threatened the ancient civilization of the Nile; nor do they comment on the politics in the play that derives from Plutarch. Cleopatra as a royal personage seems to absorb their entire interest; for Shakespeare in these later tragedies seems to be using a more Classical technique of greater concentration on the major figures. Here, as in Coriolanus, he is also attempting a more accurate local color; and, with Egyptian characters, he doubtless felt himself even less sure than with Romans such as Enobarbus, and so made Charmian and Iras merely handmaids of the Queen without significant traits or actions of their own until, as related in Plutarch, they assist at her suicide.

Some of Shakespeare's ladies-in-waiting are included merely in the anonymous "attendants" who have no speaking part and supply a sort of scenery, and also attest to the spectators the importance of their ladies. Some, slightly more notable, run errands, deliver messages, and take the place of a modern telephone. Some, like Nerissa, are also confidantes, so that the audience may learn the thoughts and motives of their mistresses. A very few like Maria in Twelfth Night and Emilia in Othello, set off their ladies' characters by contrast, and even play a chief role in the plot. Although waiting ladies are doubtless to be found in every advanced civilization, they are particularly characteristic of the Renaissance, and in various matters, large or small, they help to unfold the story, and so serve their mistresses, and also William Shakespeare.