Every royal had a court. They were the people a queen or a princess met most frequently, usually every day for years, and the women in her service lived in the palace in close proximity. Over time, some members of the court would become her friends, in some cases very close friends. This was not automatic. There were plenty of examples of women who served royal women who were cold towards them – Beata Sophia Horn, after all, complained about being ignored by the Queen Dowager and Princess Sophia Albertina. Lovisa Ulrika could be dismissive about her aristocratic Maids of Honour in the 1740s. In a letter to her sister she wrote,

Lovisa Ulrika's words to her sister display a kind of proximity between the Princess and her Maids of Honour, but they also bear testimony of an amused disdain. These women were members of aristocratic families and would not have been happy to be described as ‘domestiques’. These women were constantly there as a key part of royal everyday life and yet they could be dismissed as ‘parrots’ and ‘servants’. In order to strike up such a friendship there had to be something more, something that many people at court were keen to identify.