ABSTRACT
In June 1574, Ana de Dietrichstein (1558–after 1631) wrote a letter to her mother, Margarita de Cardona (c. 1535–1609), announcing that Felipe II (1527–1598) and Juan de la Cerda, IV Duke of Medinaceli, who had recently been appointed mayordomo mayor to the household of Ana de Austria (1549–1580), had finished preparing the accommodation for a number of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting in the Alcázar in Madrid:
Ya, bendito Dios, ha acabado el rey con nosotras, que ya estamos pasadas acá desde tres días pasada Pascua de Espíritu Santo, que creo yo que les debió de venir el Espíritu Santo a ellos pues acabaron.
(Madrid, 21 June 1574. MZAB, G-140, Kart.c. 426, fols. 271–273)At last, may God be blessed, the king is done with us, we were moved in here three days ago after the Feast of Pentecost, and I think the Holy Spirit must have descended upon them, thanks to which they finished [the work].
That same year, Ana de Dietrichstein – daughter of Adam von Dietrichstein, a favourite of the emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II, and Margarita de Cardona, lady-in-waiting and favourite of the empress María de Austria – along with other ladies-in-waiting were transferred to the queen’s household from that of Juana de Austria (1535–1573), the widowed princess of Portugal and younger sister to Felipe II, who had died in September 1573 (de Cruz Medina 2014). The princess had also resided in the Alcázar and, following her death, various members of her household left the Madrid palace. Some of the young ladies married or entered convents, while some of those who were already married or widowed returned to their family homes. Only those who had earned the favour of Felipe II or Ana de Austria were accepted in the queen’s household. The latter included Ana de Dietrichstein and her widowed aunt Ana de Cardona (lady of honour to Juana de Austria), who were relocated to new chambers in accordance with the distribution of posts and the assignment of rooms ordered by the king. Ana de Dietrichstein’s ironic words reveal that it took a long time for Felipe II and the Duke of Medinaceli to reorganise the queen’s household and assign the rooms that the numerous ladies-in-waiting should use. It was neither a simple nor irrelevant matter and, as I will demonstrate over the course of this chapter, the distribution of these court posts and rooms corresponded with the status and age of the ladies-in-waiting, as well as the favour they enjoyed. Furthermore, the large group of noblewomen who served the female members of the royal family used these spaces as an arena to deploy their agency as courtiers and to represent their aristocratic and political identity.