From The Book of Fashionable Life by A Member of the Royal Household (London, n.d.)
REGULATIONS
TO BE OBSERVED AT
HER MAJESTY’S DRAWING ROOMS.
All ladies attending Her Majesty’s Drawing Rooms are requested to bring with them two cards, with their names legibly written thereon—one to be left with the Queen’s page in attendance in the Presence Chamber, and the other to be delivered to the Lord in Waiting, who will announce the name to Her Majesty. And those ladies who are to be presented are informed, that it is absolutely necessary that their names, together with the names of the ladies who are to present them, should be sent into the Lord Chamberlain’s Office two clear days before the Drawing Room, in order that they may be submitted for the Queen’s approbation, it being Her Majesty’s command that no presentation shall take place, unless the name of the lady presenting, together with that of the lady to be presented, shall appear on the card delivered as before directed, corresponding with the names sent into the Lord
Chamberlain’s Office; and it is especially requisite that the Ladies who present others, should be actually present at the Drawing Room. One card must be left with the Queen’s Page, in the Presence Chamber, and another be delivered to the Lord-in-Waiting, who will present the Lady to the Queen.
At a Birthday Drawing Room, no presentations take place; but, nevertheless, each Lady and Gentleman, who proposes to attend, should send a card to the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain a few days before the holding of the Drawing Room Afterwards, when you attend, take care that your carriage arrive at the Palace before two o’clock. You should be provided with two cards, to be delivered as before mentioned, one to the Queen’s Page in the Presence Chamber. Afterwards you enter Queen Anne’s Chamber, where you wait until the door is opened at the end of the room, looking down from the fire-place. You should enter within the rails near the fire-place, and go in procession to the Anti-Drawing Room. Ladies carry their trains on the left arm until they come near to Her Majesty, when the train is dropped, a card delivered to the Lord-in-Wailing, who will announce the Lady’s tide or name, when she makes a graceful courtesy to Her Majesty, and then retires. The Ladies who attend Drawing Rooms will be pleased to observe that there is an established regulation with regard to their dresses. Court Etiquette requires that they should not appear in hats and feathers, or turbans and feathers, but in feathers and lappets, in conformity with the established orders.
It must be particularly observed, that no persons are permitted to remain in the Throne Room, having passed Her Majesty at the Drawing Room, but the Ministers and their ladies, the great Officers of the Household and their ladies, the Foreign Ministers and their ladies, and the Officers of the Household upon duty.