With a few exceptions, those listed in this chapter were either members of the Regent's family or well-born dependents such as wards and were of high rank by birth or marriage. Due to the relatively small number of women in the Accounts, the distinction between women and girls “of the court” and others is fairly easy to make.

Unfortunately, the stories of the women and girls below are told largely with reference to the men to whom they were daughters or wives. The Regent was the catalyst for all expenditures via the Accounts, so each recipient's relationship to and with him is important to provide context for the clothing they were granted. In addition, the published peerages that are the best source of biographical information for most people in the Accounts were written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and tended to consider all women in view of their relationships to men.

In a few cases, the Accounts shed additional light, either on those relationships or on other aspects of the lives or personalities of the women and girls who appear in them. In particular, it is possible to discern patterns in the types and quantities of clothing given to certain classes of women. Women and girls “of the court” tended to wear good-quality wool gowns, often trimmed in velvet, with wool or silk kirtles. Some had silk gowns trimmed with strips of silk fabric or passementerie and, for special occasions, long trains. Most of their clothing was black or tawny or gray, but many had a few accents or even whole garments of white, purple, red, yellow, blue, or, in one case, orange. They wore hoods—usually of black velvet—or hats, and had other accessories ranging from sleeves to necklaces to knives. For keeping warm, there were cloaks—usually of wool trimmed in velvet—and petticoats of red wool which were sometimes trimmed in or lined with fur. For riding, there were cloaks and safeguards.

The only other women and girls who dressed in a similar fashion were in service as maidens of the chamber or ladies-in-waiting to the women of rank. They were either wellborn themselves or devoted in part to keeping up the appearances of their mistresses.