Heroine of the Weekend

Next week, August 4 marks the birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, so she is our heroine of the weekend!

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (August 4, 1900--March 30, 2002) was the youngest daughter and 9th of 10 children of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) and Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck (who was descended from Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and also of Governor-General of India Richard Wellesly, 1st Marquess of Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington). She was christened at the church near her family's country home, St. Paul's Walden Bury, in Hertfordshire on September 23, 1900. Much of her idyllic childhood, filled with ponies, dogs, field sports, and playing with her siblings, was spent at St. Paul's and at Glamis Castle, the Earl's ancestral home in Scotland (famous from Macbeth). She was educated at home by a governess until the age of 8, when she started school in London, but after a few years she went back to home-schooling, and passed the Oxford Local Examination at age 13 with distinction.

On her 14th birthday, England declared war on Germany. Her brother Fergus was killed in action in France in 1915, and her brother Michael was captured after being wounded in 1917 and spent the rest of the war in a German camp. Glamis was turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, where Elizabeth helped with the nursing and was very popular with the patients, receiving many proposals of marriage.

Prince Albert, Duke of York (Bertie) was the 2nd son of King George V and Queen Mary, and as soon as he met Elizabeth the shy young man was hopelessly smitten. She liked him, as well, yet she turned him down the first time he proposed. She said she was "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to." But Bertie declared he would never marry another, and his third proposal met with success. They married on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey, and Elizabeth started a tradition among royal brides of leaving their bouquets at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. They honeymooned at Polesden Lacey, a country house in Surrey, and then went on to Scotland. Seemingly mismatched in some ways, the gregarious Elizabeth and shy, stammering Bertie proved to have an enduring, loving marriage and were devoted to each other.

In 1926, their first child Princess Elizabeth was born, followed 4 years later by Princess Margaret. The young family was highly popular, and lived a contented, fairly normal life (despite royal duties, like a tour of Australia in 1927). Until 1936.

On January 20, 1936, George V died and Bertie's brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII. George V declared, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne." His prayer came swiftly true. Edward abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and Bertie most reluctantly became King George VI. He and Elizabeth were crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937 (the date already set for Edward's coronation--the souvenirs had to be hastily reconfigured!). Elizabeth's new crown contained the Koh-i-Noor diamond, said to be bad luck for a man to wear but fine for a woman (the crown can now be seen at the Tower). The royal couple was still extremely popular, and Elizabeth wowed the world with her charm and wardrobe on tours of France and Canada.

Their hardest hour came with the outbreak of World War II, when they became potent symbols of British resistance. Elizabeth refused to leave London or send her daughters to Canada during the Blitz, despite the advice of the Cabinet to do so. "The children won't go without me," she declared. "I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave." She often made visits to parts of London targeted in the Blitz, such as the East End near the docks, always wearing her finest clothes, high heels, and hats. When Buckingham Palace was hit, she said "I'm glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face." They spent their working days at Buckingham Palace, traveling back to Windsor Castle at night to stay with the princesses.

After the war, they had only a few years of domestic happiness before George VI died of lung cancer on February 6, 1952, making their 25-year-old daughter Queen Elizabeth II. The new Queen Mother retired in grief to Scotland, intending at first to stay there. After a visit from Winston Churchill, urging her to come back to public life, she returned to London. In July 1953 she took her first overseas visit since her husband's funeral, laying the foundation stone at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Until Princess Diana, she was by far the most popular member of the royal family.

Along with official duties, she oversaw the restoration of the Castle of Mey on the Caithness coast of Scotland, which she used as her own private getaway. She developed a passionate interest in horse racing, owning the winners of over 500 races. She had a great love of art, collecting pieces by (among many others) Monet, Augustus John, and Faberge.

Her 100th birthday in 2000 was celebrated by a joyous parade, a new 20 pound note with her image, and a lunch at the Guildhall in London. In 2001, she suffered a fall and fractured her pevis, despite which she insisted on standing for the National Anthem at a memorial service for her husband on February 6, 2002. Just 3 days later, her younger daughter Princess Margaret died, and Elizabeth's famous spirit at last started to flag. She fell and cut her arm on February 13, but again insisted on going to the funeral at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, making a journey from Norfolk to Windsor despite the concerns of her family.

On March 30, the Queen Mother died at Royal Lodge, Windsor, with her daughter Elizabeth by her side. She was 101 years old, and at that time the longest-lived member of the royal family (her sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, died in 2004 at 102). Her favorite flowers were camellias, which she grew in all her gardens, and her own camellias were laid atop her flag-draped coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall. More than 200,000 people filed past as she lay guarded by members of the Household Cavalry. At one point, her 4 grandsons mounted the guard in what is known as the Vigil of the Princes, only bestowed once before, at the funeral of her father-in-law George V. On the day of her funeral, more than a million people filled the area outside the Abbey and along the 23-mile route of her procession to her resting place at Windsor beside her husband and daughter. After her funeral, the wreath atop her coffin was laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, just as her bridal bouquet was.

Sir Hugh Casson described her as "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 witha 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." (This memorial statue was erected on the Mall in London in 2009)

A few good sources on her life are:
Sarah Bradford, The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI (1989)
Elizabeth Longford, The Queen Mother (1981)
Hugo Vickers, Elizabeth: The Queen Mother (2006)
Major Colin Burgess, Behind Palace Doors: My Service as the Queen Mother's Equerry (2006)