So would you like the inside scoop
on how to be a glamorous debutante in Queen Victoria's court? Well, today you are in luck, because that
is what we're going to be talking about. The requirements, the ceremony,
how to come off very graceful and refined while you are being presented
to the Queen in her drawing room. So my name is Ellie Dashwood and
this is my channel where I talk about classic literature and history. If you like, either of those
things, please subscribe. So, okay, most people would probably
point out to me about right now that Queen Victoria has passed
away over a hundred years ago. But you never know when time
travel might suddenly throw you back into the late 18 hundreds. And you might need to know how to be
a debutante coming out into society in the Royal Court of England. So this is serious business
we got to get down into today. So before we get into all the details
of how to properly come out in society, let's just talk about the general basics
of it first, so we're on the same page. So first, what did it really
mean to be a debutante? It meant that you were
a debuting in society. And if you were from a certain class
and level of society, the first thing you would need to do is go and
pay your respects to the Monarch. Which of course in Victorian
times was Queen Victoria. And there was actually a formal
process to do this, and it was called being presented to the Queen. The Queen held four annual meetings that
were called drawing rooms every year, two before Easter and two after Easter. And the idea was you were coming to
meet the Queen in her drawing room. Of course it was not that informal. So what would actually happen is
these young ladies who wanted to be present to the Queen had to apply. And then they had to show up on the day. And it became this long ceremony
where the queen stood there. Each young woman was announced and
she went up and kissed the hand of the Queen and then left the room. And after that point, she was
officially out in society. She had the Monarch's seal of approval. And she was ready to go find a husband. Of course, being able to be
presented to the Queen like this was a total status thing. Anyone from the nobility or the
aristocracy took it as their natural right to be presented to the Queen. While everybody else was constantly
striving to reach this landmark of essentially being in the "in crowd." A FedEx guy is like coming and
bringing in me a package right now. He can probably see through the window. It's probably looks really weird. Sorry FedEx guy, just recording a
video about Queen Victoria's time. So you're in Victorian England. You want to come out in society and be
presented to the Queen having had the ultimate mark of societal approval. But how do you go about it? So let's dive into the details and
get you ready for this ceremony. The very first thing you need
to look into is if you qualify. There was an actual list of qualifications
and I'm going to read it to you now. Here we go: "The person's entitled to be presented to
her Majesty are the wives and daughters of the members of the aristocracy, the
wives and daughters of those holding high official appointments in the government. The wives and daughters of members of
parliament, the country Gentry, and the town Gentry, the wives and daughters of
the members of the legal, military, Naval, clerical, medical, and other professions. The wives and daughters of merchants,
bankers, and members of the stock exchange and persons engaged
in commerce on a large scale." Now, while those were the general
requirements, it actually went down into two more basic things. Which was, that basically all though
you might fall into this category, "It is well understood that birth,
wealth and associations and position give the reason for such a privilege." And for example, "The wife and
daughters of an officer in the Navy or a line regiment, whose means are
slender and whose position is obscure would not be justified for those
reasons to be presented to the Queen." Also, there was moral requirements. You had to have an unblemished
reputation of the highest respectability. Now for all of you Americans watching, it
didn't even matter if you were American. As long as you met those other
requirements, you could still be presented to Queen Victoria. So bonus there. Okay. So now you know if you meet those
qualifications or not, and you might have noticed that a lot of them were entirely
based on who your father or husband was. And remember, that was one of those things
I talked about in the video of "How to Be a Lady or Gentleman" that a lot of your
social standing, if you are a woman, is based off your husband or your father. Now let's say you qualify. What is the next step? Well, you need to find somebody
willing to present you. So you're being presented
to the Queen by somebody. And that person has to be a
married woman who has been presented to the Queen herself. So think of it sort of as a sponsor
that has to get you into a club. So common sponsors back in Victorian
times where of course the mothers of these girls, if they were of a certain class. Maybe their older sister who got
married to someone in the class above them, maybe a close friend or relative. We see Downton Abbey, Lady Grantham
presenting the Lady Rose MacClare. So, if you were to ask somebody else
outside of your very close friends and family, that was considered a huge ask
because what the presenter was doing was essentially vouching for you. They were saying, "Yes, this young woman
meets the qualifications to be presented and has this and unsoiled reputation." And if it came out that she presented
you, when you really didn't qualify, they would run a notice in the
newspaper and she would have to make a formal apology and it would have been
this total humiliation on her part. So you better make sure
your presenter likes you. Okay. So you meet the qualifications, you
have someone willing to present you. The next step is to apply. Now, it wasn't this super formal
application process that's like three pages and a background check. That was not how things
were ran back then. What you had to do was get two
cards from the Lord Chamberlain's office and fill them out. And so these cards have to be
filled out by the presenter. Because again, you cannot apply
to be presented by yourself. And so the presenter has to fill
out this card that pretty much says, "It is my intention to attend
a drawing room on *the date* on which occasion I propose to present
*this person*, this is my address." Then they sign it. Then they say who they are
the wife and daughter of. And then on the opposite side of the
card, they would write the debutante's name and the presenter's name. They need to get those cards back to
the Lord Chamberlain's office three to four days before the drawing room, they
wanted to present the young lady at. Now, of course you might say, how did
they even know when these things were? And they would, and of course they
knew because the Lord Chamberlain would advertise a drawing room was
going to be held in the newspaper. Then the day before the presentation,
you needed to get two other cards to fill out from the Lord Chamberlain's
office that you're going to take with you on the day of presentation. And pretty much it says, "So-and-so
is presenting So-and-so." But we'll talk more about those cards
when we get to the actual ceremony. Okay. You've gotten all of the
qualifications and logistics worked out, now you need to prepare. The first thing you need to do is
rush to your gown maker and have your official presentation gown made. Because there are requirements, court
dress was very standardized and it had to meet these important requirements. So I'm going to start at the head and work
down to the feet because logical order. So in your hair, you needed
giant feathery plumes. You needed two, if you were single. You needed three, if you were married. And they needed to be on, I
believe the left side of your head. Then also in your hair, you needed
either a lace lappets or a tulle vail. You could also have hair jewels in,
if you were such a person that owned or wanting to wear hair jewels. Next up is the dress. On the dress, need to... there's a reason I wore this dress. It needed to frame your shoulders
and be rather low cut for the time. But if you had certain health
conditions that it would be hard on you to wear something that is very
low cut when it is cold outside. You could get a note from your
doctor, and then you were given permission to wear a higher neckline. But basically the neckline
had to be like this. And then also the sleeves
had to be very short. But again, if you got a note from
your doctor and they could go all the way down to your elbows. Then the rest of the gown was pretty much
the shape of a ball gown of the time. But all of this the feathers, the
tulle, the dress needed to be white. And then there was something super
major you needed, which was the train. This train had to be three and a half to
four meters long and it needed to attach either at your shoulders or at your waist. So see how you have
some wiggle room there? It's like, "Do I want it at my waist? At my shoulders? Who knows?" But of course it was very hard to handle. And we're actually going to talk
about handling that train on the day of later in this video. And you also need gloves, usually up
to your elbows and then a few other things you might want to carry, even
though they are not required, because the feathers and the train and the
dress are required, by the way. They could, you know, bounce you, if
you did not follow these requirements. Or if you were certain status, just give
you a very firm warning about next time. So that these things that
weren't required were a bouquet. Though, most people did carry them. So you could have a
bouquet of white flowers. Then a lot of people also carried
a fan and a lace handkerchief. So you have the dressed in at
your gown makers being made. Then what you need to do next is practice
because the way you have to bow to the Queen, the steps you take, your
composure and grace will reflect on your whole season of being a debutante
and you want it to reflect well. So it's important to get
everything just right. Now, you have two options here. If you have, of course, close family
and friends, who've all been presented themselves and are willing to run
practice sessions with you, they can teach you the proper way to be presented. But if you don't, maybe
this is your first time. Your family has just come up in
the world and you really need help. Then what you would do is you would
hire a deportment instructor to give you lessons, and they would even
have a fake train for you to manage. While at home, you might just attach a big
shawl or a big towel on your back to try to get that feel of having a big train. But I will teach you everything you
need to know later in this video, when we get to the ceremony part. So stay tuned for that. See if I fall over while trying, huh. But that really might happen. Okay. So we're finally to the day of. You have your gown, you're with
the person who's presenting you and you're ready to go. So getting ready for this really
reminds me of brides getting ready. What you would do is you would hire a
hairstylist to come and do your hair. You'd anxiously try to eat lunch,
but a lot of people are so full of nerves, they can't get much down. And then they get into a carriage,
preferably a state carriage, or a very fancy carriage. If you don't have one borrow
one from your friends. Usually your friends are incredibly
supportive of this event and we'll borrow you their carriage. Because, also, I forgot to mention
this point, which is you being presented has been the talk of
your entire extended network. Everyone who comes to visit and call on
you wants to talk about being presented. They'll tell you their stories. They'll tell you horror stories
of somebody else and everything that could possibly go wrong just
so you're more nervous, I guess. Anyway, they are all very
invested in your presentation. So you get into the carriage
with your presenter. And you sit in traffic
for the next three hours. That is right. Pretty much what would happen is all
the carriages would line up on the mall going towards a Buckingham Palace,
which is where these presentations during Victoria's lifetime were held. And they would sit there for hours. And you wanted to get there early,
because if you were like the 40th carriage in line, that was good. You didn't want to be like the a
hundred and 20th carriage in line. Otherwise you wouldn't get
inside Buckingham for hours. And also all of the commoners are going to
come and line in the sides of the streets. So they can look into your carriage and
be like, "Oh, wow, she's so pretty." Or "She's not as pretty as
the other girl over there." Which, you know, can be very,
either trial by fire or pleasant. Depending on what the general consensus of
all these people who are coming to look at you stuck in traffic in your carriage is. And of course, again, remember they all
know what's going to happen because this thing was advertised in the newspapers. So after hours of being stuck in
the carriage, maybe if you got in line early enough by 3:00 PM,
you get to Buckingham Palace. And you go in and you have to
leave all of your cloaks and your wraps in the coat room. And you go up the stairs in this giant
mash of other women with giant feathers on their head and long trains over their
left arm, because that is the tradition, you carry your train over your left arm. Carrying bouquets. Some of them are temporarily
accompanied by gentlemen because generally gentlemen did not go into,
can you Presence Chamber as it was known, which is where the queen was. So they would just accompany you
while waiting and then leave. While a lot of women just went by
themselves with other women, but pretty much it was always sort of like Black
Friday rush to try to get to the Queen. But it was very controlled because
there's all of these like sort of waiting rooms in between where the Queen
is and where you come up the stairs. And there's these guards at the doors
of these waiting room that will sort of cut you off and they'll wait for
the waiting room to sort of empty out and the let more people into
it, and then they'll cut you off. And then, you know, crowd control. They were thinking about this stuff. So you're in Buckingham Palace. You have your train over your left arm. You're carrying this big bouquet. You're super anxious and
feel like passing out because you're going to meet the Queen. And if you mess this up it's
going to go down in history. You are going to be the story all
those gossipy people told you. Only, they're going to be
telling other people about you. But still, so one of the most
exciting moments of your life. You finally get to a room
called the Picture Gallery. Now the Picture Gallery is the room
right before the Presence Room. And this is where you get
ready to meet the Queen. And there people there to help you. What happens is you give
one of those cards... remember I mentioned earlier, the
second set of cards you have to get from the Lord Chamberlain's office. You give it to a servant who
will go hand that to the Lord Chamberlain when it is time. That he will read your name
off of, and just your name. Meanwhile, there are two pages
there that have these long wands. And what they do is they spread out
your train and to its full length and its full width and they use their wants
to like, make sure it's all spread out. And so it's all perfect. Then the third thing you need to
do is you have to take off your right glove so that you're a hand
be there when you meet the Queen. And I will show you the proper
way to greet Queen in a minute. But that is what you do
and the Picture Gallery. And then you hear your name called and
it is time to go and meet the Queen. Are you ready for this? Because this is the part where I might
fall over, but I'm going to teach you guys the proper way to meet Queen Victoria. Okay. So first, what I want to do is break
down the individual pieces of meeting the Queen and being presented to that court. And then we'll put it all together. Now, one of the first pieces that's
very important to master is the curtsy. Now I want to apologize straight off
that my curtsies very wobbly because apparently and I don't have lower leg
muscle strength, but I'm working on that. So just so we're on the same page,
let's talk about the difference between a standard curtsy and a court curtsy. So a standard curtsy is when you
put one of your legs behind you and you sort of plant the ball of
your foot on the ground, right. And you tip your head forward. And in this position, you dip. Right? So this is a standard curtsy, okay. That's so easy compared to a court
curtsy, a court curtsy is where you go so low that you're practically kneeling. So your knee when it's down is
maybe only this much off of floor. So you need to make sure that you have
enough space in between your feet, because of course, we try to do that
like here, that's not gonna work. So what you need to do is go so far down. Like right here and see how
the space between my knee and the floor is not very much. And then come back up. So almost touching and then back up. That is a court curtsy and that's
what's expected for you to do upon being presented to the Queen. You also have to do a court
curtsy for every member of the Royal family in the room. Because other members of the Royal family
would, in fact, come and stand with Queen Victoria during these presentations. In fact, as Queen Victoria got older,
her daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales, would take over for her
at these things after about an hour. Queen Victoria would do the first hour of
presentations and then her daughter-in-law Princess Alexandra would come and have
all the other girls presented to her because it was a very tiring business. Because Queen Victoria
stood the entire time. Which is another reason that your
curtsy has to be really low because the Queen is very short and her hands going
to be low for this next part of it. Which is when you are at the bottom
of your court curtsy, the Queen is going to extend her hand to you
like this with the back facing up. Your job is to place your hand back
facing up underneath her hands like this. And then you kissed the top of her hand
by gently pressing your lips to her hand. This is the standard procedure
for all women, except for the wives and daughters of peers. Of course, a Peer is an English Lord. If you need a refresher on what an
English Lord is, then check out my video, "What is an English Lord?" And then you will definitely know. And if you are the daughter or a
wife of a Peer, the Queen would kiss either your forehead or your cheek. Otherwise it is your job to kiss her hand. So if there are other members of the
Royal family there and what you do after you've come up from your curtsy. You gracefully slide to the side, to
where you're in front that family member. You do a full court curtsy. There's another member. You slide, you curtsy. You slide, you've curtsy. Until the very end at which point,
upon coming up from a last curtsy to the last member of the Royal family. And there could be up around nine there. That's right, you have to do
full court curtsies nine times. Upon coming up from that curtsy,
what you would do is you would gracefully, raised your left arm. And remember you have this
huge train out behind you. It's your job to walk backwards,
but how are you going to do that if you have a huge train? You're going to trip over it. So there are actually two Pages of the
court there to gather up your train. And upon coming up, they gathered it up. They drape it gracefully over your
left arm, and then you back out of the Presence Chamber as it is called. So let's put all of this
information together. I will put on my glove. So imagine I'm over here
in the Picture Gallery. They've spread out my train. I have my right glove off and I'm holding
my right glove in my left hand, along with a fan, maybe a lace handkerchief,
and probably a bouquet of flowers. I don't have flowers though. So just imagine that there. And what you do is you wait for the
Lord Chamberlain to call your name. So the Lord Chamberlain,
remember he was handed your card. He would read, "Miss Ellie Dashwood." And then you approach the Queen
and she sticks out her hand. You go into the full court
curtsy and you kiss her hand. And then you come back up. There's another member
of the Royal family. Slide to the side and you do
the full court curtsy, but you do not kiss their hand. The Queen is the only
one who's hand you kiss. Then you slide, again. There's another member. You curtsy. And when you come back up, if it's
the last member, you stick out your arm, they throw your training over it. And you back out of the
room, never turning your back on Her Majesty the Queen. At that point, you're free to run down
the stairs and leave Buckingham Palace. Because you have officially been presented
and you are free just to breathe easy. And stop doing strenuous leg exercises. Of course, in Downton Abbey with Lady Rose
is presented at court and you see them enjoying some refreshments, which was a
feature added during that time period. But during the Victorian Era they
did not have any refreshments. So once you presented to the
Queen and you're back out in your carriage, your day of presentation,
isn't completely over yet. Even though you probably want to have a
nap, you can't because there are a few other essential ingredients to the day. One is a drive in Hyde Park, which was
the most fashionable place to be seen. And of course you would drive through
so all the fashionable people could see you in your really pretty dress. That probably costs an immense
amount of money to make, by the way. Those dresses were not cheap. Then you would go to something called
Peacock Tea, which was when your close friends and family would get together
and you'd be in your pretty dress at your house, enjoying tea to celebrate your day. And then depending on what part of
Victoria's reign you were presented in, you might go to the picture
studio and have your portrait taken in your presentation dress to
preserve that memory for posterity. And then finally, after that,
has you go to bed that night, you realize: the season is on! As in the Victorian Era marriage season. Which is a another video I am
already working on making so keep an eye out on that one. Actually, this one was going
to be part of that one. And then I'm like, this
has so much information. It needs its own video. And actually, this is also a
very important note, which is presentation was something that
continued throughout a girl's life. Even if you were presented upon
coming of age and entering the marriage market, once you got
married, you need to be represented. Pretty much any time, there was a change
in your social status the Queen expected you to come back and kiss her hand. Say, during the season, you meet a
dashing young man and you marry him. And you go and get presented. Then his father dies
and he inherits a title. He is now a Lord Something, I don't know. I can't come up with a
good Lord name right now. Well, at that point, you
have to go be represented to the Queen as Lady Something. Then if he dies and then you marry
a different guy with a different title, you have to go be represented. So it really presentation at court
was something for a certain class of women that was a lifelong situation. Not only that, but then of course,
then when you had your own daughters or your sons married and you had
daughters-in-law, you would also go and present them at court. So much hand kissing going on. So let me know in the comments
below, would you want to be presented to Queen Victoria? Do you think you could make it through
the ordeal without passing out? Actually, the bigger question
for me is can I do that court curtsy without my legs giving out? Anyway, thank you so much
for watching my video. My name's Ellie Dashwood and
this is my channel where I talk about classic literature,
history and curtsying apparently. So keep being awesome. Bye. I'm so excited guys. I'm excited about this video. I don't know. I just think it's fun. I got to get my, my notes here
and I took a ton of notes here.
