| Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon |
| Queen Mother; prev. Queen Consort (more...) |
 |
| The Queen at the World's Fair,
New York City, 1939 |
| Consort |
11 December 1936 – 6
February 1952 |
| Coronation |
12 May 1937 |
| Consort to |
George VI |
| Issue |
Elizabeth II
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon |
| Full name |
| Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon |
|
Titles |
HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
HM The Queen
HRH The Duchess of York
Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
The Hon Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon |
| Royal house |
House of Windsor |
| Father |
Claude, Earl of Strathmore |
| Mother |
Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore |
| Born |
4 August 1900(1900--)
London, England |
| Baptised |
23 September 1900
All Saints Church, St Paul's Walden Bury, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England |
| Died |
30 March 2002 (aged 101)
Royal Lodge, Windsor, Berkshire, England |
| Burial |
9 April 2002
St George's Chapel, Windsor, England |
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite; 4
August 1900 – 30 March 2002), was the Queen Consort of King George VI of the United Kingdom and the British
Dominions from 1936 until his death in 1952. After her husband's death, she was known as
Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter,
Elizabeth II. Before her husband ascended the throne, from 1923 to
1936 she was known as the Duchess of York. She was the last Queen of Ireland and Empress of India.
Born into a family of Scottish nobility (her father inherited the Earldom of Strathmore and Kinghorne in 1904), she came to prominence in 1923 when she
married Albert, Duke of York, the second son of George V and
Queen Mary. As Duchess of York, she – along with her husband and their two daughters
Elizabeth and Margaret – embodied traditional ideas of family and
public service.[1] She undertook a variety of public
engagements, and became known as the "Smiling Duchess" because of her consistent public expression.[2]
In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became King when her brother-in-law, Edward VIII, abdicated in order
to marry his mistress, the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. As Queen Consort, Elizabeth accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to
France and North America in the run-up to World War II. During the war, her seemingly
indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public, and in recognition of her role as a propaganda tool, Adolf Hitler described her as "the most dangerous
woman in Europe".[3] After the war, her
husband's health deteriorated and she was widowed at the age of 51.
With her brother-in-law living abroad and her elder daughter now Queen at the age of 26, when Queen Mary died in 1953
Elizabeth became the senior royal and assumed a position as family matriarch. In her later years, she was a consistently popular
member of the Royal Family, when other members were suffering from low levels of
public approval.
Only after the illness and death of her own younger daughter, Princess Margaret, did she appear to grow frail. She died six
weeks after Margaret, at the age of 101. During the year of her death in 2002, she was ranked 61st in the 100 Greatest Britons poll.
Early life
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon 1906
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was the fourth daughter and the ninth of ten children of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis, (later 14th Earl of
Strathmore and Kinghorne), and his wife, Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck. Amongst her ancestors were
British Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of
Portland, and Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
(Governor-General of India and elder brother of another Prime Minister, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington).
The location of her birth remains uncertain, but reputedly she was born either in her parents' London home at Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens, or in a horse-drawn ambulance on the way to
hospital.[4] Her birth was registered at Hitchin, Hertfordshire,[5] near the Strathmores' country house St Paul's Walden
Bury, and she was christened there on 23 September 1900, in the local parish church.
She spent much of her childhood at St Paul's Walden and at Glamis Castle, the Earl's ancestral home in Glamis, Angus, Scotland. She was at first educated at home by a governess, and was fond
of field sports, ponies and dogs.[6] Aged 8 she attended
school in London, astonishing her teachers by precociously starting an essay with two Greek words from Xenophon's Anabasis. Her best subjects were literature and scripture. After returning to private education
under a German governess she passed the Oxford Local Examination with
distinction aged 13.[7]
On her fourteenth birthday, Britain declared war on Germany. Her elder brother, Fergus, an officer in the Black Watch Regiment, was killed in action in
France at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Another brother, Michael, was reported missing in
action in May 1917. However, he had actually been captured after being wounded and remained in a prisoner of war camp for the rest of the war. Glamis was turned into a convalescent home for wounded
soldiers, which Elizabeth helped to run. One of the soldiers she treated wrote in her autograph book that she was to be "Hung,
drawn and...quartered...hung in diamonds, drawn in a coach, and...quartered in the best house in the land."[8]
Marriage to Prince Albert
Prince Albert – "Bertie" to the family – was the second son of George
V. He initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to
think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to".[9] When he declared he would marry no other, his mother, Queen
Mary, visited Glamis to see for herself the girl who had stolen her son's heart. She became convinced that Elizabeth was
"the one girl who could make Bertie happy", but nevertheless refused to interfere.[10]
Eventually Elizabeth agreed to marry Albert, despite her misgivings about royal life.[11] The engagement was announced in January 1923. Albert's freedom in choosing
Elizabeth, legally a commoner though the daughter of a peer, was considered a gesture in favour
of political modernisation; previously, princes were expected to marry princesses from other royal families.[12] They married on 26 April
1923, at Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth laid her bouquet
at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on her way into the Abbey,[13] a gesture which every royal bride since has copied, though subsequent
brides have chosen to do this on the way back from the altar rather than to it. She became styled HRH The Duchess of York. They honeymooned at
Polesden Lacey, a manor house in Surrey, and then went to
Scotland.[14]
In 1926, the couple had their first child, Elizabeth, who would later become Queen Elizabeth II. Another daughter, Margaret Rose, was born four years later. The Duke and Duchess of York travelled
to Australia to open Parliament House in Canberra in 1927.[15]
- Further information: Royal visits to Australia
Queen consort to George VI (1936–1952)
Accession and abdication of Edward VIII; accession of George VI
On 20 January 1936, King George V died and the succession passed to Albert's brother, Prince Edward the
Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VIII. George and Mary had been
forthcoming as to their reservations about their eldest child. Indeed, George had expressed the wish, "I pray God that my eldest
son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."[16]
As if granting his parents' wish, Edward forced a constitutional crisis
by insisting on marrying the American divorcée Mrs Wallis Simpson. Although
legally Edward could have married Mrs Simpson and remained king, his ministers advised him that the people would never accept her
as queen and advised against the marriage. Indeed, if the King ignored their advice, they would have to resign: this would have
irreparably ruined Edward's status as a constitutional Monarch, obliged to
accept ministerial advice.[17] He chose to abdicate in
favour of Albert,[18] who had no desire to become king
and had even less training for the role (despite his parents' aforementioned hopes for him). Albert took the regnal name
George VI. He and Elizabeth were crowned King and Queen of
Great Britain, Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, and Emperor and Empress of India on 12 May 1937, the date already
nominated for the coronation of Edward VIII.[19]
Elizabeth supported George VI's decision to withhold the style of Royal Highness from
the ex-King Edward's wife and any of his children.[20]
When Edward and Wallis Simpson married, Mrs Simpson became the Duchess of Windsor, but not a Royal Highness. Elizabeth was later
quoted as referring to the Duchess as "that woman".[21][22] For her part, the
Duchess referred to Elizabeth as "Cookie".[23]
Royal tour of Canada and the United States in 1939
In June 1939, Elizabeth's husband became the first reigning King of Canada to tour
the country, as well as the United States.[24][25] The extensive tour took
them across Canada from coast to coast and back, with a brief detour into the United States, where they visited the
Roosevelts in the White House and at their
Hudson Valley estate. The royal couple's reception by the Canadian and U.S.
public was extremely enthusiastic,[26] dissipating in
large measure any residual feeling that George and Elizabeth were in any way a lesser substitute for Edward.[27] Elizabeth told Mackenzie
King, the Canadian Prime Minister, "that tour made us",[28] and she returned to Canada frequently both on official tours
and privately.[29]
In Canada she was quoted throughout her life as to her reported immediate response on landing in 1939: a World War I veteran
asked, during one of the earliest of the royal couple's repeated encounters with the crowds, "Are you Scotch or English?" She replied, "I'm Canadian!"[30]
- Further information: History of monarchy in
Canada and Royal tours of Canada
World War II
During World War II, the King and Queen became symbols of the nation's resistance.
Shortly after the declaration of war, The Queen's Book of the Red
Cross was conceived. Fifty authors and artists contributed to the book, which was fronted by Cecil Beaton's portrait of the Queen and was sold in aid of the Red Cross.[31] Elizabeth publicly refused to leave London or send the children to Canada, even during
the Blitz, when she was advised by the
Cabinet to do so. She said, "The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never
leave."[32]
She often made visits to parts of London that were targeted by the German
Luftwaffe, in particular the East End, near
London's docks. Her visits initially provoked hostility. Rubbish was thrown at her and
the crowds jeered, in part because she dressed in expensive clothing which served to alienate her from those suffering the
privations caused by the war.[33] She explained that if
the public came to see her they would wear their best clothes, so she should reciprocate in kind; Norman Hartnell dressed her in gentle colours and never black, in order to represent "the rainbow of
hope".[34] When Buckingham Palace itself took several hits during the height of the bombing, Elizabeth was able to
say, "I'm glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face."[35][36]
Though the King and Queen spent the working day at Buckingham Palace, partly for security and family reasons they stayed at
night at Windsor Castle (about 20 miles, 35 kilometres, west of central London) with the
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. The Palace had lost much of its staff to the army, and
most of the rooms were shut.[37] Due to fears of imminent
invasion during the "Phony War" the Queen was given revolver training.[38]
Because of her effect on British morale, Adolf Hitler is said to have called her "the
most dangerous woman in Europe".[3]
However, prior to the war both she and her husband, like most of Parliament and the British public, had been supporters of appeasement and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, believing
after the experience of the First World War that war had to be avoided at all costs. After the resignation of Chamberlain, the
King asked Winston Churchill to form a government. Although the King was initially
reluctant to support Churchill, in due course both the King and Queen came to respect and admire him for what they perceived to
be his courage and solidarity.[39][40]
Queen Mother (1952–2002)
New role in widowhood
On 6 February 1952, King George VI died of lung cancer. Shortly afterward, Elizabeth began to be styled "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen
Mother". This style was adopted because the normal style for the widow of a king, "Queen Elizabeth", would have been too similar
to the style of her elder daughter, now Queen Elizabeth II.[41] Popularly, she simply became "the Queen Mother" or "the
Queen Mum".
She was devastated by the King's death and retired to Scotland; however, after a meeting with Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, she broke her retirement and resumed her public duties.[42] Eventually she became just as busy as Queen Mother as she had been as Queen. In July of 1953, she
undertook her first overseas visit since the funeral, laying the foundation stone in Mount
Pleasant of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland – the current University of
Zimbabwe.[43]
The widowed queen also oversaw the restoration of the remote Castle of Mey on the
Caithness coast of Scotland, which she used to "get away from everything"[44] for three weeks in August and ten days in October each year.[45] Inspired by the amateur jockey Lord Mildmay,[46] she developed an interest in horse racing that continued for the rest of her life, owning the
winners of approximately 500 races. Her distinctive light blue colours were carried by horses such as Special Cargo, the winner
of the 1984 Whitbread Gold Cup and The Argonaut. Although (contrary to rumour) she
never placed bets, she did have the racing commentaries piped direct to her London residence, Clarence House, so she could follow the races.[47] One of her jockeys, Dick
Francis, later achieved fame as a writer of detective novels.
The Queen Mother reads a
telegram from her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, on her 100th
birthday:
4 August 2000
Before the marriage of Diana Spencer to her grandson Prince Charles, and after Diana's death, the Queen Mother – known for her personal and public
charm – was by far the most popular member of the British Royal Family.[9] Her signature dress of large upturned hat with
netting and dresses with draped panels of fabric became a distinctive personal style. The Queen Mother had a discerning love of
the arts, and purchased works by Claude Monet, Augustus
John and Peter Carl Fabergé, among others. The works she obtained were
transferred to the Royal Collection after her death.[48]
Centenarian
In her later years, the Queen Mother became known for her longevity. Her hundredth birthday was celebrated in a number of
ways: a parade that celebrated the highlights of her life included contributions from Norman
Wisdom and John Mills.[49] She attended a lunch at the Guildhall, London, at which
George Carey, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, accidentally attempted to drink her glass of wine. Her quick admonition of "That's mine!" caused widespread
amusement.[50]
In December 2001, the Queen Mother had a fall in which she fractured her pelvis. Even so, she insisted on standing for the
National Anthem during the memorial service for her husband on 6 February the following
year.[51] Just three days later, her second daughter
Princess Margaret died. On 13 February 2002, at
Sandringham House, the Queen Mother fell and cut her arm. A doctor and an ambulance
with a resuscitation unit (the latter only being there as a precaution) were called to Sandringham, where the wound on the Queen
Mother's arm was dressed.[52] Despite this fall, the
Queen Mother was still keen to attend Margaret's funeral at St George's
Chapel, Windsor, two days later on Friday of that week. The Queen and the rest of the royal family were greatly concerned
about the journey the Queen Mother was facing to get from Norfolk to Windsor.[53] Nevertheless, she made the journey but insisted that she be shielded from the press, so that no
photographs of her in a wheelchair could be taken.[53]
Death
The Queen Mother's funeral carriage escorted by the Queen's Guard
On 30 March 2002, at 3:15pm, the Queen Mother died peacefully
in her sleep at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, with her surviving daughter Elizabeth II at her
bedside. She had been suffering from a cold for the last four months of her life.[52] She was 101 years old, and at the time of her death held the record for
the longest-lived royal in British history.[54]
She grew camellias in every one of her gardens, and as her body was taken from the
Royal Lodge, Windsor to lie in state at
Westminster Hall, camellias from her own gardens were placed on top of the
flag-draped coffin.[55] More than 200,000 people filed by
her coffin as it lay in state in Westminster Hall of the Palace of Westminster for three days. During that time the coffin was guarded by members of the
household cavalry and other branches of the armed forces. The Queen Mother's four grandsons Prince Charles, Prince Andrew,
Prince Edward and Viscount Linley stood guard over the four corners at one point.
On the day of the Queen Mother's funeral, 9 April, more than a million people filled the area
outside Westminster Abbey and along the 23-mile route from central London to her final
resting place beside her husband and younger daughter in St George's
Chapel at Windsor Castle.[56] At her request,
after her funeral the wreath that had lain atop her coffin was placed on the Tomb of the
Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, a gesture that echoed her wedding-day tribute.[57]
Public perception and character
Sir Hugh Casson described her vividly as like "a wave breaking on a rock, because
although she is sweet and pretty and charming, she also has a basic streak of toughness and tenacity. … when a wave breaks on a
rock, it showers and sparkles with a brilliant play of foam and droplets in the sun, yet beneath is really hard, tough rock,
fused, in her case, from strong principles, physical courage and a sense of duty."[58] Peter Ustinov described her during a student demonstration
in 1968, "As we arrived in a solemn procession the students pelted us with toilet rolls. They kept hold of one end, like
streamers at a ball, and threw the other end. The Queen Mother stopped and picked these up as though somebody had misplaced them.
[Returning them to the students she said,] 'Was this yours? Oh, could you take it?' And it was her sang-froid and her absolute
refusal to be shocked by this, which immediately silenced all the students. She knows instinctively what to do on those
occasions. She doesn't rise to being heckled at all; she just pretends it must be an oversight on the part of the people doing
it. The way she reacted not only showed her presence of mind, but was so charming and so disarming, even to the most rabid
element, that she brought peace to troubled waters."[59]
Despite being regarded as one of the most popular members of the Royal Family in
recent times who helped to stabilise the popularity of the monarchy as a whole,[60] the Queen Mother was subject to various
degrees of criticism during her life. Among the most serious criticisms of her relates to perceived partiality of the King and
Queen in relation to the appeasement debate in the 1930s. Upon Neville Chamberlain's return from Munich in 1938, he was invited onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace to receive acclamation from a
crowd of well-wishers. Chamberlain's policy towards Hitler was the subject of opposition in the House of Commons, which led historian John Grigg
to describe the King's behaviour in associating himself so prominently with a politician as "the most unconstitutional act by a
British sovereign in the present century".[61] However,
historians have also argued that the King only ever followed ministerial advice and acted as he was constitutionally bound to
do.[62] In 1945, Churchill was invited onto the balcony
in a similar gesture.
During the 1939 Royal Tour of North America, U.S. First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt said that Elizabeth was "a little self-consciously regal".[63] After Mrs Roosevelt "lunched alone with the King & Queen
& Elizabeth & Margaret Rose", during her 1948 visit for the unveiling of the statue of President Roosevelt in
Grosvenor Square, she observed, "It was nice & they are nice people but so far
removed from real life, it seems."[64]
Kitty Kelley and others have alleged that during World
War II Elizabeth did not abide by the rationing regulations to
which the rest of the population was subject.[65][66] However, this point
is contradicted by the official records;[67][68] and Eleanor Roosevelt during her stay at Buckingham Palace
during the war reported expressly on the rationed food served in the Palace and the limited bathwater that was permitted.[69]
Kelley also alleged that Elizabeth used racist slurs to refer to black people,[65] a claim strongly denied by Major Colin Burgess.[70] Major Burgess was the husband of Elizabeth Burgess, the mixed-race secretary
who accused members of the Prince of Wales's Household of racial abuse.[71] Queen Elizabeth made no racist public comments; in private comments recorded in Woodrow Wyatt's diary she apparently admonishes him when he expresses racist views, by telling him, "I am
very keen on the Commonwealth. They're all like us."[72] However, she did distrust Germans; she told Woodrow Wyatt, "Never trust them,
never trust them."[73] While she may have held such
views, it has been argued that they were normal for British people of her generation and upbringing, who had experienced two
vicious wars with Germany.[74]
Her political views were never publicly disclosed, though a letter she wrote in 1947 described Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee's "high hopes of a
socialist heaven on earth" as fading and presumably describes those who voted for him as "poor
people, so many half-educated and bemused. I do love them."[75] She told the Duchess of Grafton, "I
love communists".[76]
Woodrow Wyatt thought her "much more pro Conservative than the Queen or the Prince of Wales"[77] but she later told him, "I like the dear old Labour Party."[78]
In 1987, she was criticised when it emerged that two of her nieces, Katherine
Bowes-Lyon and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, had both been committed to a
psychiatric hospital because they were severely handicapped. However,
Burke's Peerage had listed the sisters as dead, apparently because their mother,
Fenella (the Queen Mother's sister-in-law), "was 'extremely vague' when it came to filling in
forms and might not have completed the paperwork for the family entry correctly".[79] When Nerissa had died the year before, her grave was originally marked with a plastic tag and a
serial number. The Queen Mother claimed that the news of their institutionalisation came as a surprise to her.[80]
Elizabeth maintained a serene image throughout her public engagements, except once, during the 1947 Royal Tour of
South Africa, when she rose from the royal carriage to beat an admirer about the
head with her umbrella, having mistaken enthusiasm for hostility.[81] Being a keen angler, she once calmly joked, after being rushed to
hospital when a fish bone stuck in her throat at a dinner party, "The salmon have got their own back."[82]
She was well-known for her dry witticisms. On hearing that Edwina Mountbatten was buried at sea, she said: "Dear Edwina, she
always liked to make a splash."[82]
Accompanied by the gay writer and wit Sir Noël Coward at a gala function, she mounted a
staircase lined with Guards. Noticing Coward's eyes flicker momentarily across the soldiers, she murmured to him without missing
a beat: "I wouldn't if I were you, Noël; they count them before they put them out."[83] And, according to an article in The
Observer (10 November 2002), after being advised by
a Conservative Minister in the 1970s not to employ homosexuals, the Queen Mother observed that without them, "we'd have to go self-service".[83] On the fate of a gift of a nebuchadnezzar of champagne (20 bottles' worth) even if her family didn't come for the holidays, she said,
"I'll polish it off myself."[84] Her extravagant
lifestyle amused journalists, particularly when it was revealed she had a multi-million pound overdraft with Coutts Bank.[85] Her habits were often parodied (with relative affection) by the satirical 1980s
television programme Spitting Image –
which portrayed her with a Birmingham accent and an ever-present copy of the Racing Post.
Posthumous tributes
In July 2007, in Norfolk, Lang Lang was the soloist in the premiere of Nigel Hess's Piano Concerto, commissioned by Prince Charles
in memory of his grandmother. Each of the three movements reflects an aspect of her personality.[86]
Correspondence
According to the controversial revisionist David Irving, the undisclosed contents of one box of the Monckton papers, deposited at the Bodleian Library, may contain items of correspondence relating to Elizabeth's views on the abdication
crisis, the Duchess of Windsor and Britain's role in and after World War II, including private letters between Elizabeth and the
once pro-appeasement Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax.[87] This claim has been publicly denied by the Bodleian Library.[88] The British Government has given assurances that all papers relating to the
abdication crisis in its possession were released after the Queen Mother's death.[89] The Queen Mother's official biographer, William
Shawcross has been given full access to her personal papers, lodged in the Royal
Archives.[90] His book is scheduled to be
published in October 2007.[91]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
Honours
- Further information: List of titles and honours of
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
The Queen Mother's British honours were read out at her funeral, held in the United Kingdom, as follows: "Thus it hath pleased
Almighty God to take out of this transitory life unto His Divine Mercy the late Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent
Princess Elizabeth, Queen Dowager and Queen Mother, Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Lady of the Most Ancient and Most
Noble Order of the Thistle, Lady of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, Grand Master and Dame Grand Cross of the Royal
Victorian Order upon whom had been conferred the Royal Victorian Chain, Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the
British Empire, Dame Grand Cross of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Relict of His Majesty King
George the Sixth and Mother of Her Most Excellent Majesty Elizabeth The Second by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith,
Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, whom may God preserve and bless with long life, health and honour and all
worldly happiness."[92]
In the memorial service held in Canada, her Canadian honours, the Canadian Forces
Decoration and Order of Canada, were read out.
Arms
The Queen Mother's coat of arms were the Royal Coat of Arms of the
United Kingdom (in either the English or the Scottish version) impaled with
the arms of her father, Earl of Strathmore, the latter being 1st and
4th quarters, argent, a lion rampant Azure, armed and
langued gules, within a double tressure flory-counter-flory of the second (Lyon), 2nd and 3rd
quarters, ermine three bows, stringed paleways proper (Bowes). Supporters: Dexter, a lion Or armed and langued Gules royally crowned proper; Sinister, a lion per fesse or
and gules. The shield is surrounded by the Garter, or (in Scotland) the collar of
the Thistle.
The Queen Mother was also entitled to grant a Royal Warrant to suppliers of services,
who would display her arms on their signage and packaging. The Queen Mother's arms were shown until the start of 2007, when they
automatically expired.
Ancestry
