Heather Shanette

Author & Historian



Welcome to my website. I'm an author and historian specialising in the Tudor age. I'm especially interested in the women who served Queen Elizabeth I and my book 'Elizabeth I's Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids: The Women who Served the Tudor Queen' was recently published by Pen and Sword. My book was five years in the making and is the most comprehensive overview to date of the women who served Queen Elizabeth.



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Latest Blog Post

Ladies-in-Waiting: Modern Words in a Tudor World

When we think of Tudor queens, whether regnant or consort, we think of them being attended by ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour. Several books about these attending women have 'ladies-in-waiting' in the title, and the term appears in hundreds of other books. It therefore may surprise you to learn that the term 'ladies-in-waiting' was not in common use in the sixteenth century. Indeed, it would be another two hundred years before...

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Tells the personal and professional stories of many women.

Lists all the women known to have served the Tudor Queen over the course of her life and reign.

Challenges age-old assumptions and provides new insight into the Elizabethan court.

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'Elizabeth I's Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids: The Women who Served the Tudor Queen' is available in print (hardback) and as an ebook.

Buy directly from the publisher Pen & Sword or from online retailers like amazon.



Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabethi.org

For 25 years I have been the webmistress of Elizabethi.org, a website dedicated to the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

On this website read about her remarkable life and about the people and events that make her reign one of the most important in history.

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Articles

Read all about Christmas at Queen Elizabeth's court in my article Gloriana's Christmas featured in the All Things Tudor Magazine (2022).

I also have an article in the magazine explaining why Twelfth Night was the 6th of January not the 5th.

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