Regency Trivia – Lady’s Maids and Valets

Rounding out the senior servants are valets and lady’s maids (also called dressers and abigails). These personal servants took orders only from their master or mistress.

They were highly trained. They not only dressed the lady or gentleman, but they cared for all the expensive clothing, to include cleaning, mending, and altering the garments. The laundress only washed linens. Therefore, the remainder of the clothing was left to the lady’s maid and valet.

But that wasn’t their only duty. They were responsible to dressing and cutting hair, keeping jewels clean and in good order, sending messages, supervising the cleaning of the lady or gentleman’s bedchambers, packing, serving breakfast or other meals in the bedchamber, and ensuring that everything in the room was just so.

When traveling, the valet and lady’s maid would frequently travel ahead to ensure an inn room was made comfortable for their master or mistress. They would even bring sheets to change the beds. They were the first person a gentleman or lady would see in the morning and the last person at night.

The one thing a valet did not do was tie the gentleman’s cravat. Or if he did, the gentleman would never admit to it.