What happened to the Queen's Coronation maids of honour?

What happened to the Queen’s maids of honour? After the death of Lady Mary Russell aged 88, FEMAIL looks at the glittering lives of the women who stood by Her Majesty at the Coronation

• Six maids of honour flanked Queen Elizabeth II on day of her Coronation in 1953
• Lady Rosemary Muir, Lady Anne Glenconner, Lady Moyra Campbell, Lady Mary Russell, Lady Jane Lacey and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby were chosen 
• Lady Mary Russell died aged 88 the night before Her Majesty’s state funeral

They have described themselves as the ‘Spice Girls’ of their day – the six maids of honour who flanked Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her Coronation on 2 June 1953.

Lady Rosemary Muir, Lady Anne Glenconner, Lady Moyra Campbell, Lady Mary Russell, Lady Jane Lacey and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby were chosen for their ‘decorative’ beauty as well as their ability to carry the Queen’s heavy 21ft train. 

They became notorious in their own right when their names were announced as the women selected to follow the then Princess Elizabeth down Westminster Abbey to be crowned the new Queen.

They were intensely scrutinised by the young women and Press of the day – and such was the attention lavished upon them, Lady Glenconner even once claimed they were seen as the ‘Spice Girls’ of their time.

One of the six maids of honour, Lady Mary Russell, died aged 88 the night before Her Majesty’s state funeral last week. She passed away ‘peacefully at home’ surrounded by her family on September 18.

An obituary in The Times described her as mother-of-five, grandmother-of-12 and ‘beloved wife of David’.

It follows the death of Lady Moyra Campbell, one of the other six maids of honour, aged 90 in November 2020. A royal source said at the time: ‘It’s very sad. Her Majesty kept in touch with all her former maids of honour.’ 

Baroness Glenconner, Lady Jane Lacey (who is married to royal biographer Robert Lacey), Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, and Lady Rosemary Muir are all alive today.

Lady Moyra was a charity campaigner, Baroness Glenconner is best known as Princess Margaret’s closest confidante, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby inherited one of her father’s titles and fortune and one of Lady Muir’s children had Princess Margaret as a godmother.

Here, FEMAIL reveal the varied fortunes of Her Majesty’s inner circle… 

The Maids of Honour are (left-right): Lady Moyra Campbell, Lady Anne Glenconner Lady Jane Lacey, Lady Mary Russell, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby and Lady Rosemary Muir. The Queen is pictured in the centre

LADY MARY RUSSELL

Lady Mary Russell pictured at her home in Combe near Hungerford in 2011. She died a day before the Queen’s state funeral on Monday

Lady Mary Russell (pictured) was one of six women to carry the late monarch’s train during her 1953 Coronation

The late Queen with her maids of honour in the Green Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace on June 2, 1952 2nd June 1953

Lady Mary Russell died aged 88 the night before Her Majesty’s state funeral last week. She passed away ‘peacefully at home’ surrounded by her family on September 18.

An obituary in The Times described her as mother-of-five, grandmother-of-12 and ‘beloved wife of David’.

The daughter of the Earl and Countess of Haddington, Lady Mary helped to carry the Queen’s 21ft train as she walked through Westminster Abbey for her Coronation 70 years ago. She and the five other maids of honour wore silver gowns with tiaras and long silk gloves.

Speaking about the day, she said: ‘Of all the girls our age in the country, we six girls were chosen to carry the Queen’s train and that meant a great deal.

‘It was overwhelming and moving – especially during the anointing… It was an incredible moment, but all I could think about was how heavy the embroidery felt.’

Thousands line the streets of central London for Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953. The maids of honour were all daughters of Dukes, Marquesses, and Earls, unmarried, and aged between 17 and 23

Lady Mary’s father was a childhood friend of the Queen Mother from Scotland and her childhood scrapbook featured a picture of him at George VI’s Coronation in 1937 carrying The Sceptre of the Dove – one of two sceptres handed to the new monarch. 

Following the tradition of Queen Victoria, the maids of honour were all daughters of Dukes, Marquesses, and Earls, unmarried, and aged between 17 and 23. They were left in no doubt what a signal honour they’d been given. 

Their task was to carry the Queen’s train, so heavy she couldn’t move without them. 

An annexe had been built on to the Abbey where the four taking part in the procession but who did not travel in the coach could drink coffee and listen to the radio commentary of the Queen’s journey from Buckingham Palace. 

After walking her up the aisle, and then back down, they all went to the Palace to be photographed by the renowned Cecil Beaton and famously appeared on the balcony. 

For Lady Mary and the others, the most moving moment was the anointing, when the Queen took off her regalia and was blessed with Holy Oil under a canopy held by four Knights of the Garter.

She said: ‘Afterwards, the Queen gave us all the most simple, beautiful brooch of her initials in her handwriting in diamonds. 

‘After the reception, I went outside the Palace with friends, and cheered and cheered so many times. I felt pretty flat afterwards.’

LADY MOYRA CAMPBELL

Lady Moyra Campbell (pictured in 2011) died aged 90 in November 2020. A royal source said at the time: ‘It’s very sad. Her Majesty kept in touch with all her former maids of honour.’

Lady Moyra Campbell, pictured above in the 1950s, was aged 22 when the Queen chose her to be one of her train bearers 

Lady Moyra Campbell died aged 90 in November 2020. A royal source said at the time: ‘It’s very sad. Her Majesty kept in touch with all her former maids of honour.’ 

Lady Moyra passed away at a nursing home in Belfast.  Known at the time of the Coronation as Lady Moyra Hamilton, she was the only daughter of the 4th Duke of Abercorn and a first cousin of Princess Diana’s father, the 8th Earl Spencer.

She was aged 22 when the Queen chose her to be one of her train bearers who carried her Robe of State.

On the 60th anniversary of the Coronation in 2013, Lady Moyra joined her five fellow maids of honour, with whom she was still good friends, in recalling what she said was the greatest day of her life for the Radio 4 programme The Reunion.

She said they were touched by the cheering crowds along the route. Race-horse-loving Lady Moyra specially remembered the 6ft 3in Queen of Tonga, who refused a hood and rode through the pouring rain in an open carriage.

‘She was one of the stars of the day,’ she said. ‘I later called a newborn colt Tonga in her honour, but sadly he wasn’t quite the success she was!’

On the 60th anniversary of the Coronation in 2013, Lady Moyra joined her five fellow maids of honour (File image of Lady Moyra above) 

Lady Moyra married distinguished naval officer Cdr Peter Campbell and the pair, who lived in Co Antrim, Northern Ireland, had two sons.

She was staying with cousins in Gloucestershire when the invitation arrived at home in County Tyrone. 

She recalled in 2013: ‘I bumped into the Duke of Norfolk at a fundraising evening and he said: “Have you had a letter from me?” I swooned with amazement and rang home, which you only did then in an emergency.’

The first fitting with Norman Hartnell was in January 1953. ‘The dresses were made incredibly quickly – the seamstresses must have stayed up all night.’

Lady Moyra spent the night before with her grandparents in Mount Street in Mayfair. She recalled: ‘My grandmother made a cooked breakfast. We got into a car sent from the Royal Mews to the Abbey on the dot of 8am. It was a humbling experience to see all the crowds who had been out all night in the rain waiting.’

As she recalled, they stood for three hours and the ceremony went like clockwork. ‘The young Duke of Kent looked at his watch and said to his mother “bang on time!” as he walked out of the Abbey after the service.

‘You could feel the history of the ancient walls, the expectation of the vast congregation and you knew the television audience was on us. Amidst it all was the complete composure of the Queen, making her solemn promise.

‘About halfway through the ceremony, Prince Charles was allowed in and we heard his little voice asking the Queen Mother questions. At the party afterwards he wanted us to smell his father’s hair oil in his hair.’

Later, Lady Moyra went home to change, and went out on to the Mall with a cousin who had been wounded in the war from which Britain was still recovering. The gaiety in the street so soon after those dark years seemed ‘like the dawn of a new age’.

BARONESS GLENCONNER

Lady Anne Glenconner (pictured in 2012), then Lady Anne Coke, the 20-year-old daughter of the Earl of Leicester, was a vivacious socialite who described the six maids of honour as the ‘Spice Girls of our day’

Friends with princess Margaret: Lady Anne, daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester and the Countess of Leicester. She married Colin Tennant, later Lord Glenconner, who bought Mustique and spent much of his life in the Caribbean

Lady Anne Glenconner, then Lady Anne Coke, the 20-year-old daughter of the Earl of Leicester, was a vivacious socialite who described the six maids of honour as the ‘Spice Girls of our day’ and explained each were chosen because of their lineage – the girls had to be the daughter of an Earl, Marquess or Duke – and be unmarried.

‘We also had to have a certain type of look and figure. Put it this way, we wouldn’t have got picked if we were fat!’ she told The Daily Mail in 2013.

According to Lady Anne, who went on to marry Colin Tennant, the 3rd Baron Glenconner, there was barely any time to rehearse – and never in the Abbey itself.

‘We had a few run-throughs with the Duchess of Norfolk, who actually walked quite differently from the Queen – she walked much faster and we had to really pick up our pace in a hurry when we got to the Abbey. 

‘In the end we had just one rehearsal with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, where she wore some kind of curtain wrapped around her waist to mimic her heavy robes,’ she recalled.

Princess Margaret (centre) and Colin Tennant (left) and Lady Anne (pictured in 1977)

The night before the Coronation the capital was so packed that Lady Glenconner had to sleep on a mattress on her great-uncle’s floor. ‘I don’t think many people would have imagined that,’ she said.

She added: ‘On the morning we had our hair and make-up done because the event was being televised for the first time, but my hair was a disaster.

‘I had just had a perm done and they put these heated rollers in my hair. I was frazzled and looked like a sheep and was awfully upset. Fortunately the hairdresser got to work and made me look half decent.

‘We dressed at Buckingham Palace. Like the Queen our dresses were by Normal Hartnell, but while they looked exquisite they were the most horribly uncomfortable things to wear and absolutely crushed our ribs. We were told to keep wriggling our toes to try and keep the circulation going.’

Lady Anne’s father had been the Duke of York’s equerry and as her parents lived ten miles from Sandringham, she had been to many birthday parties there.

Princess Margaret was Anne’s age and Anne would go on to be her lady-in-waiting for 34 years. ‘She was a great friend of my husband and he gave her a plot of land in Mustique.’

When news of her ‘selection’ came through, her name was front page news — although she was abroad: ‘I was in New Orleans selling pottery, recovering from an unhappy love affair, when a telegram came through to come home.

‘We were so excited about going to have our dresses designed by Norman Hartnell because clothes were still on coupons then.

‘I remember I had one dress made out of parachute silk [left over from the war]. To suddenly have this fantastic dress was a fairy tale,’ she recalled.

Years later, Anne was watching the footage with Princess Margaret and asked her why she looked so sad on that day. ‘People forget I had just lost my father, and then I lost my sister and my home, too,’ she replied.

Margaret moved out of Buckingham Palace to live with her mother at Clarence House.

LADY JANE LACEY

Lady Jane Lacey (pictured with her husband Robert Lacey in 2020) was known as Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the 20-year-old daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry, when attending the Queen’s Coronation

Lady Jane Lacey was known as Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the 20-year-old daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry, when attending the Queen’s Coronation. 

She married property developer Max Rayne, later Lord Rayne, in 1965, and the couple had four children together. Lord Rayne died in 2003.

Two years later, she began dating historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey. The pair were married in 2012, when Lady Jane was 80 years old, and Robert was 68. 

Robert’s marriage to his first wife, Sandi, ended in 2004 in a legal separation after 34 years and three children. 

But even close members of his family were stunned to learn that at the age of 68 Robert had quietly got married again, reported the Daily Mail at the time.

Few members of her family had any idea that the wedding had taken place. They were married quietly at Jane’s holiday villa near Grasse in the South of France with two French witnesses. 

She married property developer Max Rayne, later Lord Rayne, in 1965, and the couple had four children together. Lord Rayne died in 2003. Two years later, she began dating historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey (pictured together in 2020). The pair were married in 2012, when Lady Jane was 80 years old, and Robert was 68

Recalling the Coronation in 2013, Lady Jane said: ‘It was such a shock to receive the invitation. I had met the old King [George VI] and the Queen with my parents but never the new Queen.

‘We met them when I was about six and my sister [Lady Annabel Goldsmith] was about four. I think Annabel was slightly disappointed they weren’t wearing gowns and crowns.’

In the rehearsals, Jane had found that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, got cross easily and was very stern and pompous. ‘So we all laughed when he tripped up on one occasion.’

When the day finally came around, she recalled being far too nervous to eat and that the dress was actually very uncomfortable.

It was unlined and scratchy. But she did wear it again, to great effect, to a ball at Grosvenor House thrown for the American evangelist Billy Graham.

Jane was such a beauty that society photographer Sterling Henry Nahum Baron (commonly known as just Baron) had nominated her as one of the ten most beautiful women in England.

BARONESS WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY

Lady Mary Russell and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby arrive at Westminster Abbey for a service to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Coronation in 2013

Aged 18, and the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ancaster, the Lord Great Chamberlain, and granddaughter of Nancy Astor, Lady Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby was the youngest maid of honour.

Now, Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, she inherited one of her father’s titles and fortune and became Lady Jane Willoughby de Eresby, with homes at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire and Drummond Castle in Perthshire.

She has been listed in the Sunday Times Rich List, placing 1,572nd in 2008, according to reports. 

Lady Jane’s father was the Lord Great Chamberlain at the time of the Coronation, and therefore a key player in the ceremony.

The youngest Maid of Honour caught the train up from her finishing school in the country for rehearsals and dress fittings.

Her Coronation day started round the corner from the Abbey at her home in Westminster Gardens. 

She recalled to the Mail On Sunday in 2013: ‘My father was part of the procession but he left before me. I had no professional hair or make-up help. A car arrived with Mary Baillie-Hamilton already in it and it was a jolly ride as the pubs were open and full of drivers who’d dropped people off.

‘It was dark and cold outside when we got to the Abbey. I found my father, who had lost part of his leg during the war, shivering in the annexe, so I got him a cup of coffee.

‘The whole ceremony went extraordinarily fast. In the rehearsals there was lots of stopping and starting and people fainting — now the marvellous music just carried you along.’

She continued: ‘The train was so heavy it was like lifting up a carpet. A dead weight. The Queen was very much in control, extraordinarily strong and upright, with a measured step.’

Only the Abbey part of the day had been rehearsed. ‘The rest just happened. For example we didn’t know we would be going on to the balcony, that was quite unexpected.’

LADY ROSEMARY MUIR

Lady Rosemary Muir (pictured in 2011), the widow of aristocrat Charles Muir, who lives in Oxfordshire, was just 23 when attending the Coronation. Titled Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill, she was the daughter of 10th Duke of Marlborough

In June 2022, Lady Rosemary, 93, was left in tears after being presented with the dress she wore at the Coronation after it was painstakingly restored to its former glory. Pictured, Lady Rosemary is presented with the gown on an episode of Nick Knowles: Heritage Rescue on discovery+.

Lady Rosemary Muir, the widow of aristocrat Charles Muir, who lives in Oxfordshire, was just 23 when attending the Coronation. Titled Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill, she was the daughter of 10th Duke of Marlborough.

She was the eldest Maid of Honour and probably the least fazed. She was brought up with 36 ‘indoor’ servants at Blenheim Palace near Oxford and Winston Churchill was her uncle.

The mother-of-three recalled in 2013: ‘I was used to huge numbers of people and vast parties. 

‘Foreign royals often came to Blenheim (where she lived). I was once pulled out of bed to meet the Queen of Egypt. I had my wedding, with 950 guests, at Blenheim two weeks later.’

She had moved her wedding date to accommodate the Coronation. So in the weeks before, Lady Rosemary was darting back and forth between Norman Hartnell for her Coronation gown and his great rival, Hardy Amies, for her wedding dress.

Steeped in history: Lady Rosemary’s dress spent decades in an archive at Blenheim Palace, pictured in the above stock image, the family seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill

Wedding bells: Lady Rosemary married Robert Muir two weeks after the coronation after moving the date for the Queen

‘I woke up in my parents’ house in Mayfair and the whole place was in turmoil,’ she said of the big day. ‘After breakfast, I went in a car to the Palace to meet Jane [Vane-Tempest-Stewart].’

The two of them helped the Queen into her carriage and when they arrived at the Abbey, the Maids of Honour were paired off in height order, Rosemary the tallest with Lady Moyra Hamilton.

‘The Queen was so confident that you didn’t think anything could go wrong,’ she recalled.

The only hitch for Lady Rosemary was that at one point the Archbishop of Canterbury squeezed her hand so hard that he crushed the phial of ammonia — given in case any of them fainted and needed reviving — that was hidden in her glove, and the smell wafted through the Abbey. 

She also remembered that ‘Uncle Winston Churchill’s coach broke down’ at one stage.

After the Buckingham Palace reception, she returned to Blenheim, where her mother was roasting an ox for the tenants on the estate.

She’d had to get special permission from the Ministry of Food — ‘an ox was a wonderful thing during rationing’.

In June 2022, Lady Rosemary, 93, was left in tears after being presented with the dress she wore at the Coronation after it was painstakingly restored to its former glory.

She praised the ‘unbelievable’ transformation of the faded Norman Hartnell gown, which had laid in storage for decades and was badly damaged due to sun exposure. 

It was recently brought out of storage at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, and given to textile conservator Emma Telford, who spent 400 hours repairing the delicate silk dress, before Lady Rosemary was presented with the gown on an episode of Nick Knowles: Heritage Rescue on discovery+. 

‘Oh, my goodness me, I must put on my glasses,’ Lady Rosemary gasped on seeing the dress. ‘It’s fantastic. Emma, I congratulate you, it’s unbelievable what you’ve done.’

Like the other maids, Lady Rosemary was dressed in a stunning gold gown designed by the Queen’s dressmaker Normal Hartnell. The dress has a tiny 22-inch waist, with a motif of gold leaf and pearl white blossom. 

Following the Coronation, Lady Rosemary’s dress spent years on display at Blenheim Palace, the family seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. But the delicate silk was badly damaged by sunlight exposure, causing the material to split and crack.

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