Camilla, queen consort, will not appoint ladies in waiting, and instead will have six assistants known as “Queen’s companions” during her time on the throne, according to Buckingham Palace.
As part of a modernization of the role, the Queen’s companions will attend fewer events with Camilla than Queen Elizabeth II’s ladies in waiting did, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told NBC News.
Camilla’s six companions will be Sarah Troughton, Fiona, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, Lady Katharine Brooke, Baroness Carlyn Chisholm, Lady Sarah Kewick and Jane von Westenholz, the mother of the woman who introduced Prince Harry to his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
The six women will assist the queen, along with her private secretary and deputy private secretary, according to the spokesperson.
The role of ladies in waiting, a tradition going back to the Middle Ages, is an honorary position that involve helping the queen at public events, day-to-day planning and writing letters, according to the BBC.
The new companion role will be a more informal position of supporting the queen at official engagements, the spokesperson said.
Three of Elizabeth’s former ladies in waiting will remain in King Charles III’s household as “ladies of the house,” according to the spokesperson, and will help the king host events at Buckingham Palace. The two other ladies in waiting will retire.
Charles and Camilla’s coronation ceremony is scheduled for May 6 at Westminster Abbey. Charles rose to the crown after the death of his mother on Sept. 8.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
