the queen mother biography

Queen Mother Elizabeth

(1900-2002)

Who Was Queen Mother Elizabeth?

Queen Elizabeth was the Queen consort of King George VI until his death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. She was popular with the public, earning the nickname "Smiling Duchess" because of her consistent indomitable spirit. She was of great moral support to the British public during WWII.

The Queen Mother Elizabeth was born Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon on August 4, 1900. She was the ninth child and fourth daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis, and his wife, Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. Elizabeth was schooled at home by governesses until the age of 8, when she began attending private schools in London. She passed the Oxford Local Examination with merit at age 13.

World War I started on Elizabeth’s 14th birthday and her family home, Glamis Castle, became a hospital. Though she was too young to serve as a nurse, she did assist her parents in their efforts to support the war. Four of her brothers served in the army and the oldest, Fergus, was killed in action at the Battle of Loos, in 1915.

From early childhood, Elizabeth and her siblings had been friends with the children of King George V. At 18, Lady Elizabeth was a strikingly attractive woman and many young men were drawn to her, including Albert, George V's second son (who would later become King George VI). Albert suffered from a relentless stammer, which added to his nervousness and insecurity. However, his unwavering adoration for Elizabeth won her over, and the two were married on April 26, 1923. They had two children, Elizabeth, born in 1926, and Margaret, born in 1930.

During the first decade of their marriage, Prince Albert and Princess Elizabeth had the chance to establish an intimate and happy family life. He began seeing an Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, who helped him with his stammer. Elizabeth was very supportive of his therapy, often participating in his sessions. Their relationship was depicted in the 2010 film, The King’s Speech .

In January 1936, King George V died, and Prince Edward (Duke of Windsor) ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. Edward was in love with Wallis Simpson, an American socialite and divorcee. Advised that the Parliament would not approve of him marrying a divorced woman, Edward abdicated the throne in December 1936. Subsequently, Albert became king—a position that he was reluctant to accept. He and Elizabeth were crowned on May 12, 1937, he as King George VI, and she as Queen Elizabeth, Queen consort.

Queen Elizabeth never expected to be queen, but once it happened, she dedicated her life and that of her family to serving the nation and supporting her husband in his arduous duties as sovereign. As war clouds began to form over Europe, the royal couple visited two important allies: France, in July 1938, and the United States, where they met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in June 1939. The trip proved to be very successful as the queen was immensely popular with Americans.

• World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, some officials suggested that Elizabeth and her children evacuate to North America or Canada. To this, the queen replied, "The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the King will not leave the country in any circumstances whatsoever." Thus, the entire royal family shared the dangers and difficulties of war with the rest of the nation. When France fell to the Nazis in June, 1940, the queen sent a broadcast message to the women of France in their language, expressing her sorrow. Later in September, she was caught in a German bombing raid on Buckingham Palace, though she was unharmed. Throughout the war, she and the king toured hospitals and factories and visited with the troops, sometimes near the fighting. Queen Elizabeth also suffered personal sorrow when both her nephew and the king's youngest brother were killed during the war.

In 1948, the royal couple celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. In a moving speech, King George VI spoke passionately of his marriage to Elizabeth, expressing how much she inspired him. Their strong bond would be needed as the post-war years brought on dramatic changes for both Britain and the royal couple. After the war, Britain's economy was all but bankrupt. Many of its former colonies were striking out for independence. Great Britain went through several years of harsh austerity, rebuilding its economy and shedding its colonies to form the British Commonwealth.

The royal couple also faced personal challenges: In 1949, a blood clot was removed from the king's right leg. From then on, Queen Elizabeth and her daughters fulfilled many of the king's public engagements.

In September 1951, Georg VI was diagnosed with lung cancer. He and the queen were scheduled for a trip to Australia and New Zealand in January 1952, but Elizabeth chose to stay home with her husband instead; Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, went in their place. On February 6, 1952, King George VI died. Princess Elizabeth and her husband returned to Britain immediately after hearing the news, and the nation went into mourning.

Queen Elizabeth as the Queen Mother

Queen Elizabeth deeply loved her late husband, and for a time after his death, it looked as though she would become a recluse. But remembering her duty, she accepted the tragic loss with stoic courage and soon resumed her public duties. She would go on to become a wise and respected leader. After her daughter’s coronation as Queen Elizabeth II, she took on the name "Queen Mother" so as not to be confused with the new queen. Following her service as queen, the Queen Mother said, "My only wish is that I may be allowed to continue the work that [George VI and I] sought to do together."

Over the next three decades, the Queen Mother became the royal family’s matriarch, but was always careful not to overshadow her daughter's reign as queen. She continued to travel and make public appearances in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth, and she didn’t allow personal illness to slow her down: She dealt with an appendectomy, colon cancer and an operation to remove a fishbone caught in her throat, all while serving as matriarch. In addition to her public duties, she enjoyed growing camellias in her gardens, fishing and horseracing, owning several prize-winning steeplechase horses.

The Queen Mother Elizabeth was particularly close to her grandson, Prince Charles. Soon after he wed Princess Diana, the Queen Mother welcomed Diana and took her under her wing. Following the young couple's divorce, Elizabeth's friendship with Diana cooled considerably—perhaps due to her strong opposition to divorce or her close relationship with Charles. Privately, Elizabeth was very disturbed by the divorce, though publicly, she tried to remain above the rancor and embarrassment.

Final Years and Death

In her later years, the Queen Mother Elizabeth became known for her longevity. She celebrated her 90th birthday in August 1990, and continued to stay active with appearances at official celebrations. She also successfully underwent surgeries for a cataract, hip replacements and a broken collarbone. In December 2001, at age 101, the Queen Mother had a fall and fractured her pelvis. She recuperated well enough to attend a memorial service for her late husband in February of the following year. On February 9, 2002, her youngest daughter, Princess Margaret, died at the age of 71. Despite falling and injuring her arm a few days after Margaret's death, the Queen Mother managed to attend her daughter's funeral.

On March 30, 2002, the Queen Mother died in her sleep at her home, the Royal Lodge at Windsor Great Park, with her surviving daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, at her side. She was 101 years old and at the time of her death, held the record of being the longest living member of Britain's royal family until Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, surpassed her at 102.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Elizabeth
• Birth Year: 1900
• Birth date: August 4, 1900
• Birth City: London
• Birth Country: England
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Queen Elizabeth was the Queen consort of King George VI until his death in 1952. She is best known for her moral support to the British people during WWII and her longevity.
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Nacionalities
• Scot (Scotland)
• Death Year: 2002
• Death date: March 30, 2002
• Death City: London
• Death Country: England

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Queen Mother Elizabeth Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/royalty/queen-mother-elizabeth
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 18, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
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The Queen Mother: The Official Biography Paperback – November 16, 2010

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• Print length 1168 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Vintage
• Publication date November 16, 2010
• Dimensions 6.13 x 2.03 x 9.22 inches
• ISBN-10 1400078342
• ISBN-13 978-1400078349
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About the author.

Born in 1946, William Shawcross is an internationally renowned writer and broadcaster who appears regularly on television and radio. His articles have appeared in leading newspapers and journals throughout the world. www.williamshawcross.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (November 16, 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 1168 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1400078342
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400078349
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.32 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 2.03 x 9.22 inches
• #1,324 in Historical British Biographies
• #1,532 in Royalty Biographies
• #1,616 in England History

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The Queen Mother: Biography

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon’s parents moved in royal circles and, as a girl, Elizabeth played with the children of British king George V. Eventually Elizabeth's father became the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, bringing the family an official title.

The Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was born on 4 August 1900. She was the fourth daughter of Lord Glamis, later the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Clyde. She was educated at home and by the age of ten was fluent in French.

During WWI, her family home became a hospital for war wounded and while Elizabeth was too young to be a nurse, she assisted with welfare work. In 1915, her brother Fergus was killed at the Battle of Loos.

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As a child, she played with the children of King George V and Queen Mary, with Elizabeth being the bridesmaid at Princess Mary's wedding in 1922.

When she was 21, George V's second son, Prince Albert, asked her to marry him, but she turned him down. Elizabeth refused the prince on three further occasions, but in January 1923 she consented. The marriage took place in Westminster Abbey on 23 April that year.

Elizabeth was now the Duchess of York. She and Albert had two daughters, Elizabeth, who was born on 21 April 1926, and Margaret Rose born on 21 August 1930.

George V died in January 1936 and his eldest son ascended the throne as Edward VIII, but shocked the world by abdicating to be with American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

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Suddenly, Elizabeth's husband was thrust into the role of king. He accepted the crown, taking the name George VI, and worked hard to live up to his new responsibilities, but it was never easy for him, and his wife never forgave his brother Edward and Wallis. Their coronation took place on 12 May 1937 and Elizabeth became the first British-born Queen-Consort since Tudor times.

Before WWII broke out, the royal couple made a visit to France in July 1938 and to Canada and the US in May and June 1939.

The king and queen stayed on in London during the Blitz, whilst the girls spent the war years at Windsor Castle, where they were relatively safe. Buckingham Palace was hit by bombs and rockets on nine occasions.

"I'm glad we've been bombed," Queen Elizabeth said. "It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face."

She and the king often visited bomb sites, as well as hospitals, factories and troops.

The king and queen celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in 1948, but the king's health began to deteriorate. Their last public appearance together was at the opening of the Festival of Britain in 1951.

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He died of lung cancer in 1952. His eldest daughter became Queen Elizabeth II, and his widow was now known as Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. She continued with her royal duties, which included over 40 official visits abroad including a trip to Canada in 1989 to mark the 50th anniversary of her first visit there.

She was also the patron of over 350 organisations and worked as the president of the British Red Cross for many years, as well as the commandant-in-chief of the nursing division of the St John's Ambulance Brigade.

The Queen Mother also received honourary degrees from a number of universities and was chancellor of the University of London for 25 years until 1980.

In the summer of 2000, she attended a number of events to mark her 100th birthday, including a service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral on 11 July. She also received a birthday telegraph from the queen.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother died in March 2002 at the age of 101.

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Biography Online

Queen Mother Biography

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900-2002) — the widow of George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, popularly known as the Queen Mother was a popular figure throughout Britain for her role in providing an enduring figurehead for the Royal family.

Her Royal Century

By Joe Queenan

• Nov. 5, 2009

Shortly after the British Army’s rousing triumph over Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El Alamein in November 1942, Winston Churchill warned his countrymen to avoid over­confidence. “Now this is not the end,” he cautioned. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” This sentiment, cited in William Shawcross’s Brobdingnagian official biography, “The Queen Mother,” is what many readers may feel when they get to Chapter 10 of this 1,096-page book. That’s the chapter where, after all the ripping parties and smashing card games and postprandial singalongs and first-rate trips to East Africa attended by Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon, wife of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, Shawcross must finally turn his attention to that awful rotter Edward VIII.

After more than 300 pages of paeans to upper-class Britons, the author is compelled to introduce us to a liar, extortionist and, for all intents and purposes, traitor, a man who ditched the throne of Britain to marry a Nazi-admiring gold digger from Crabcake Corners. This is the first time the book gets really interesting. But more important, this is the first time one feels that it might be possible to finish reading it. Chapter 10 is not the end. It may not even be the beginning of the end. But it may be the beginning of the middle.

“The Queen Mother” is a labor of love, both for the author and for anyone who tries reading it from cover to cover. The authorized biography of a woman who was born as the 20th century was beginning and died about a year after it ended, it is a linear, you-are-there chronicle of the events of her life. Mostly this means ­lunches, balls, charity events, shooting parties. She cut cakes, she cut ribbons, she cut the rug. She was a royal. She had read the job description, first issued in 1689.

All this is communicated in a meticulous, sober fashion. Shawcross, a dutiful hagiographer, doesn’t venture very far inside his subject’s head, other than to suggest that she never forgave Edward VIII for chucking it all because it forced her husband into the family business — killing him, she believed, long before his time. Only when Edward VIII or the Luftwaffe pops in does the narrative become in any way absorbing. Elsewhere, the prose tends to run like this: “Back at the house there was tea to be taken in the drawing room, which featured an ancient gramophone with long-playing records of such old favorites as the Crazy Gang, and an equally aged television set for watching videos (rarely if ever the news). Ruth Fermoy would play the piano and Queen Elizabeth sang the old favorites — ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ or ‘The Lambeth Walk.’ ”

The queen mother, a fairy princess in her youth, a fairy queen in middle age and a fairy godmother in her later years, was a favorite of the British people from the word go. There was something about her that people liked, just as there is something about Prince Charles that people don’t like. In fact, everything. The immense affection the public felt for her antedates the central event in her life, when she and her husband refused to flee London during the Battle of Britain, a heroic, enormously symbolic act that helped pull her equally heroic countrymen through one of the darkest moments in their history. No one alive at the time ever forgot her courage, nor should anyone alive today.

That said, the queen mother was never cut from the same cloth as such stirring figures as Elizabeth I or Mary Queen of Scots or even her grandson’s wife Diana. She didn’t shape the times she lived in; she attended functions during them. Adhering to the principle that royals should be seen but not really heard, the queen mother seems to have said little that was truly interesting. She had all the strengths and weaknesses of her class, and capitalized on that weird chumminess between the man in the street and the crowned heads that has long been a puzzle to those who would like the royals to disappear. If she ever had an original thought, it goes unreported here. And while Shawcross had access to letters no other biographer has ever laid eyes on, the results are uninspiring. Elizabeth, whose dowdy attire matched her humdrum intellect, started writing vacuous letters when she was a child, and she never stopped. “One feels that occupation of a country by the Germans leaves a terrible legacy of anarchy & cruelty & a weakening of moral forces,” she wrote to her mother-in-law, Queen Mary, in December 1944. “Indeed the Nazis are the forces of Evil.” In the spring of 1939, on the eve of the war, she had apprised the same correspondent: “I am starting to read the unexpurgated edition of ‘Mein Kampf.’ Have you read it?”

“The Queen Mother” is more a document replete with data than a book designed to entertain. It’s like one of those official portraits by court-appointed painters: literal but artless. For the most part, Shawcross stays in the background, lurking behind the arras, dropping the pretense of objectivity only when anyone on the left clamors for attention. He admires Churchill (who doesn’t?), despises the Soviets and doesn’t seem to have much time for the Labour Party. Here he’s echoing the views of those he is writing about; no “official” biography of a queen is likely to be written by someone who isn’t already on the team. Sometimes his politics intrude too much: nowhere in an immense book filled with details about both world wars can he find the space to mention the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the most important battles in history. This seems willfully petty.

“The Queen Mother” has few surprises. But there are those few. Inside the family, the queen mother was known as Buffy. Her friendship with the poet laureate Ted Hughes worked out much better than Sylvia Plath’s did. The queen suffered from chronic tonsillitis. Her brother Alec died of a brain tumor resulting from a cricket ball landing on his head. The rumors that she once had a colostomy were not true. Her brother-in-law Edward, who lied about his net worth at the time of his abdication and was seemingly being groomed by the Nazis to replace his brother should things break nicely for the Third ­Reich, threatened to slit his throat if Mrs. Simpson deserted him. Unlike the patriotic, public-spirited, good-hearted queen mother, Edward was basically a worthless human being. But in a book loaded with references to grouse-shooting and pantomime and the Rev. Tubby Clayton and the stallions of the Royal Stud, any of his appearances is a welcome relief. Goes down a bomb, in fact.

THE QUEEN MOTHER

The official biography.

By William Shawcross

Illustrated. 1,096 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $40

Joe Queenan’s memoir “Closing Time” will be released in paperback next spring.

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Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Autobiography by William Shawcross

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Autobiography

by William Shawcross 1,000pp, Macmillan, £25

For the Queen Mother, writes William Shawcross, as he trudges through the second half of her life, "one decade glided into another, with the basic pattern of her days, weeks, months and years being fairly constant". For much of his biography he is remarkably persuasive on this point. Chapter after chapter of his interminable chronicle glides, or rather drags, repetitively past, allowing the few things that did change to stand out in lurid contrast. One year, for instance, she acquired a stairlift.

But there must have been more to it than that. The Queen Mother was deeply in debt most of the time. And the arrival on the public stage of Prince Charles's mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, for example, must have caused a temporary wrinkle in the serene old lady's gin, nags'n'picnics routine.

For grandmother and grandson were close. And considering her feelings about Wallis Simpson, who went to her grave unforgiven, and later about Peter Townsend, the Queen Mother must have had some views on the divorcee who saw off Diana. Concerning Wallis, she wrote at the height of the abdication crisis: "If Mrs Simpson is not fit to be Queen, she is not fit to be the King's morganatic wife." What, then, did she make of Charles's ambitious mistress? The woman features here only once, on page 795, identified as the wife of a royal guest, Andrew Parker Bowles: theirs is a joint entry in a 1970s Castle of Mey visitors' book.

The author devotes far more space to the Queen Mother's lunches, to the decorations on her millions of hats, to her horses, to the various inert objects he spots then solemnly itemises, as if in training for the world championships of the tray game. Among the ornaments arranged on a Castle of Mey desk, he doggedly reports, is "a little corgi from the Buckingham Palace gift shop". It sits there now. The Queen Mother's house, Shawcross assures us, "is preserved as it was in her lifetime". He has chosen to do the same thing for her reputation.

If it's hard to respect a biographer capable of an omission on the Camilla scale, it is impossible to trust him. What else has he left out? Shawcross records Princess Margaret's vandal decision to destroy letters from Diana to the Queen Mother because, she said, they were "so private". Given his determination to empathise, at all times, with the royal point of view, his comment on this affair may be read as savagely critical: "It was understandable, although regrettable from a historical viewpoint."

From that perspective, this biographer appears to be at his most usefully unguarded in the first fifth of the Queen's 101 years. Possibly because it was long ago, Shawcross is willing to depict his heroine, during the first world war, as a giddy airhead gripped by her prodigious appetites for food, clubs, clothes, cocktails, dancing, chocs, actors, shopping and men in uniform, including chauffeurs.

The nautical look had a particularly stimulating effect. Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was only 15 when she wrote a characteristically coarse letter to her governess: the Firth of Forth was heaving, she reported, with "simply hundreds of beautiful brown lieutenants, subs, snotties (midshipmen), Admirals and sailors. Oh my! They were all most amorous!" Not that she was unaware there was a war on. "I feel as if I never want to go to a dance again," she wrote in 1918. "One only makes friends and then they are killed."

Long before she would express her thankfulness at having been bombed, so as to look the East End in the face, the ill-educated Elizabeth complained bitterly at having had to travel to the same area, where she failed her school certificate. "What was the use of toiling down to that – er – place Hackney?" she demanded. But no sooner had this droll but frightful-sounding young woman accepted a proposal from the stammering Duke of York (having strung him along for a year or two), than such disagreeable sentiments were never heard again.

Like her personality, the Queen Mother's epistolary style appears to have been transformed, on the instant of betrothal, into everything that is pious and dignified, sympathetic and charming. Unless we have Shawcross to thank for this unblemished characterisation of a boozy actress who more recently, according to the journalist Edward Stourton, said the EU would never work, because of "all those Huns, wops and dagos". In his diaries, her loyal friend the late Woodrow Wyatt recorded, with more tact "She clearly has some reservations about Jews in her old-fashioned way". "I'm not as nice as you think," she used to tell him. Eleanor Roosevelt suspected something of the sort, noting Elizabeth's gift for "turning on graciousness like water".

Shawcross, who is probably more queen motherly than the Queen Mother, will have none of it. "She may have been a brilliant actress," he allows, "but her feelings were genuine." Really? It comes to something when a biographer's partiality is repeatedly exposed by the testimony of his own subject. Why can't poor women live on tea and "some buns", wondered this legendary trencherwoman, during the depression. In another letter, written after a bomb hit Buckingham Palace, we find her moved by a visit to the East End, where 200 people had died under a school. PS, she writes: "Dear old BP is still standing and that is the main thing". So we learned something, after all.

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Uploaded by Unknown on September 8, 2012

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