Mrs. Jenkins

Mrs. Jenkins keeps the below-stairs machinery of the royal household running, a housekeeper whose authority over servants is absolute even as she answers to those above her. She is brisk, exacting, and unsentimental, more concerned with propriety and order than with the young queen's private dramas playing out upstairs.

Eve Myles brings a coiled, watchful energy to a role that could easily be furniture. She lets small looks and clipped lines suggest a whole hierarchy of loyalty and resentment among the staff, making the servants' world feel as consequential as the court's without ever competing for the spotlight.