Also 4 cha(u)mbre. [f. BED sb. + CHAMBER. Cf. MHG. bettekammere.]
A chamber or room intended for holding a bed; arch. and displaced in common use by bedroom, exc. in reference to the royal bedchamber, as in gentleman, groom, lord, or lady of the bedchamber.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. V. 136. Þe Beste in þe Bed-chaumbre lay bi þe wowe.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., II. iv. 66. Her Bedchamber … was hang’d With Tapistry of Silke and silver.
1685. Lond. Gaz., No. 2028/2. Then the Lord Churchill Gentleman of the Bedchamber, followed by Two Grooms of the Bed-Chamber. Ibid. (1702), No. 3862/1. The Ladies of the Bed-chamber, Maids of Honour, and other Ladies.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 70. Those menial offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles.
1789. Ld. Auckland, Corr. (1861), II. 188. We are obliged to have all the six children in our bedchamber to-night.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 248. Letting us know how the parlours and bedchambers of our ancestors looked.
b. attrib., as bed-chamber candle, plot, -man.
1643. Prynne, Sov. Power Parl., III. 89. Neither must his Barber trim him, nor his Bedchamber-men attire him, for feare of high Treason in touching him.
1671. F. Philipps, Reg. Necess., 46. All the Chamberlains or Bed-chambermen, Except some of greater Eminencie therein mentioned, were to be freed from Pourveyance and Cart-taking.
1833. Macaulay, War Success., Ess. (1854), I. 259/1. The great party … was undermined by bedchamber women at St. James’s.
1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 32. A bed-chamber candle.
1880. Disraeli, Endym., lviii. The famous Bed-Chamber Plot … which terminated in the return of the Whigs to office.
