Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon served as the final empress of British India and as Queen consort of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from her husband King George VI’s accession in 1936 until his death in 1952. She was the mother of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth states. She was born and raised in British nobility, educated at home by a governess until she was eight years old, and then she began going to school in London. Four of her brothers joined the Royal Army at the start of World War I. Elizabeth took part in the British war effort herself. Elizabeth took charge of running the Glamis Castle, her family’s residence, which served as a recuperation center for injured troops. Following her marriage to the Duke of York in 1923, Elizabeth rose to prominence in the media. Her husband succeeded her brother-in-law King Edward VIII, who abdicated the British throne in 1936 in order to wed Wallis Simpson. Throughout World War II, Elizabeth provided the British people with moral support. Elizabeth later came to be regarded as the matriarch of the British royal family after her husband passed away not long after the war’s conclusion.
Early Childhood & Life
The couple Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (after known as the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of Scotland), and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck welcomed Elizabeth into the world on August 4, 1900.
The youngest daughter of her parents, she has nine siblings. She had three sisters, Mary, Violet, and Rose, as well as six brothers: David, John, Fergus, Patrick, Michael Claude, and Alexander Francis.
Her birthplace’s precise location is unclear. She was allegedly born in her mother’s horse-drawn ambulance as she was being transported to a local hospital, according to some reports, while others say that she was actually born in her mother’s Westminster residence at Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens.
The Forbes House in Ham, London, which belonged to her maternal grandmother, Louisa Scott, has also been suggested as a potential birthplace. Her birth was registered in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, which is where she was identified as being born in the 1901 English census.
On September 23, 1900, she was christened in the neighborhood parish church, All Saints. Her godparents are her paternal aunt Lady Maud Bowes-Lyon and her cousin Venetia James.
Elizabeth spent her formative years either in Glamis Castle or St. Paul’s Walden. The latter was the ancestral house of her family. She was homeschooled by a governess in her early years and enjoyed playing field sports.
She began attending a school in London when she was eight years old and instantly made an impression on her professors by beginning an essay with two Greek words from the “Anabasis,” the most well-known work by the Greek philosopher Xenophon. She really enjoyed the academic topics of literature and history.
A German Jewish governess named Käthe Kübler eventually took over her homeschooling, and when she was 13 years old, she sat for the Oxford Local Examination, passing it with distinction. When World War I started, she was 14 years old. Four of her six brothers—Patrick, John, Fergus, and Michael—served in the Royal Army. David was too young, and Alexander had passed away in 1911.
Fergus died at the Battle of Loos in 1915 after being appointed as an officer with the Black Watch Regiment. Patrick served in the Black Watch as well, and on June 19, 1920, he received a promotion to deputy lieutenant of Forfarshire.
John, who was also a member of the Black Watch, accidently shot himself. His left forefinger had to be removed as a result. In 1917, Michael was taken prisoner by the Germans, who kept him there until the war was over.
Elizabeth made her own personal contribution to the military effort. She assisted in managing the Glamis rehabilitation facility for injured soldiers. She made a lasting effect on the guests that were staying there. She should be “Hung, drawn, and quartered… Hung in diamonds, drawn in a coach and four, and quartered in the best house in the land,” one soldier who had received her care wrote in her autograph book.
Marriage and Adoption
Elizabeth received Prince Albert, Duke of York’s first marriage proposal in 1921. She later admitted that the reason she declined him was because she feared that she would “never, never again be free to think, speak, and act as I really ought to” in the future.
Albert swore to his parents that he would only wed Elizabeth. At his sister Princess Mary’s nuptials to Viscount Lascelles on February 28, 1922, he made another proposal but was again turned down.
In January 1923, she formally accepted his proposal. By modern standards, Albert’s choice of his future wife was extremely progressive because traditionally, European royals were only wed to other European royals. Elizabeth was not a part of the royal family, despite being a peer’s daughter.
The ceremony took conducted at Westminster Abbey on April 26, 1923. It was an unanticipated event. She laid her bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior before entering the Abbey in honor of Fergus, who died in the conflict.
The newlyweds left for their honeymoon at Polesden Lacey, a lavish home in Surrey, following their wedding and breakfast at Buckingham Palace.
The time when Albert and Elizabeth were the Duke and Duchess of York, they traveled widely. They traveled via Ireland in July 1924 and East Africa from December 1924 to April 1925, stopping in Aden, Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan but avoiding Egypt owing to political upheaval.
On April 21, 1926, Princess Elizabeth, their first child, was born. On August 21, 1930, they gave birth to Princess Margaret, their second child. She had to leave Princess Elizabeth behind during their trip to Australia in 1927 to officially open the Parliament House in Canberra, which made her feel “very miserable.”
Albert had a pronounced stammer, which significantly hampered his ability to talk in front of groups of people. Lionel Logue, an Australian speech and language therapist, developed a speech therapy program that Elizabeth assisted him with. The King’s Speech, an Oscar-winning movie from 2010, was based on this episode.
On January 20, 1936, Albert’s father, King George V, passed away. As the eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII. He did, however, trigger a constitutional crisis by insisting on getting married to Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee. Although he was legally free to wed whoever he chose, the Church of England forbade divorced persons from remarrying, and the King of England also served as the head of that church.
Ultimately, Edward made the decision to wed Simpson and renounce the crown in favor of his brother. On December 11, 1936, Albert came to the throne under the regal name “George VI.” Elizabeth also assumed the title of Queen Consort. On May 12, 1937, George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
The Queen Consort’s life
George VI took office at a very uncertain moment in history. As the Third Reich grew in power in Germany, a new world war was on the horizon. In order to show Anglo-French unity against the Nazi Germany menace, Elizabeth accompanied her husband on his trip to France.
When the royal couple asked British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to join them on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet a gathering of well-wishers, they received considerable backlash. Although Chamberlain enjoyed considerable support from the British populace, his policy toward Nazi Germany faced criticism.
The monarch and queen set off on a successful North American trip in 1939, starting in Canada before traveling to the United States. Everywhere they went, the people cheered them on.
After the visit, any remaining impression that George was a poor replacement for Edward vanished in most cases. Elizabeth said, “That tour made us,” when speaking with Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
George and Elizabeth became the steadfast emblems in the struggle against Nazism throughout World War II. To help the Red Cross during the war, “The Queen’s Book of the Red Cross” was released in November 1939.
She angrily and outwardly rejected the suggestion that she and her kids leave London. Despite the cabinet’s repeated requests for her to comply during the Blitz, she steadfastly refused, saying, “The children won’t travel without me. The king won’t see me go. The king will also never depart.
She was greatly admired for her frequent trips to the barracks, hospitals, and factories that had sustained damage from the German Luftwaffe’s relentless bombing. The Buckingham Palace itself was badly damaged by the attack.
Since the British government believed an attack could occur at any time during the Phoney War, Elizabeth was given instructions on how to handle a revolver. Winston Churchill succeeded Chamberlin as prime minister of the United Kingdom after Chamberlin’s resignation in May 1940. The king and the queen were first suspicious of Churchill’s intentions but quickly grew to appreciate him.
She was once referred to as “the most dangerous woman in Europe” by Adolf Hitler, according to a number of sources, because he thought her enormous popularity may endanger German interests.
She saw the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill be soundly defeated by Clement Attlee’s Labour Party in the years following the war, and she also saw her husband give up the title of Emperor of India in June 1948, over a year after India and Pakistan gained their independence.
There is only one known case in which Elizabeth’s attempt to project a regal, peaceful demeanor was clearly compromised. She struck a guy with an umbrella while the royal family was visiting South Africa in 1947 after mistaking his ardor for animosity.
The British Royal Family’s matriarch
Since the end of the war, the king’s health had been steadily deteriorating. He smoked a lot, and the intense stress of the battle also had an impact. He later received diagnoses for lung cancer, as well as for arteriosclerosis and Buerger’s disease.
Elizabeth, his eldest daughter and the presumed heir, took on the most of his royal responsibilities during the final few months of his rule. On February 6, 1952, in the morning, George VI passed dead. He was replaced by Elizabeth, the presumed successor, who became Elizabeth II.
Elizabeth, who had been heartbroken by her husband’s death, had fled to Scotland, but Churchill visited her and persuaded her to return to her public duties.
As she believed that it was difficult to separate herself from the manner her daughter, the Queen of the United Kingdom, was using, she desired to be addressed as “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother” rather than the traditional form for the widowed queen, “Queen Elizabeth”.
She traveled to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland with Princess Margaret to lay the cornerstone for the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which later changed its name to the University of Zimbabwe.
She also oversaw the refurbishment of Scotland’s Castle of Mey, which she frequently used as a haven. She developed a new passion for horse racing while George was still living and would devote the remainder of her life to supporting and sponsoring the activity.
Demise and Legacy
Elizabeth was admired more than ever for her longevity in her later years. When she turned 100 in 2000, a parade and a special commemorative £20 note with her portrait on it were held in her honor.
Princess Margaret passed away in February 2002 from a number of illnesses brought on by her smoking. She suffered a great deal as a result of losing one of her children. On March 30, 2002, at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, died peacefully. Queen Elizabeth II, her lone surviving child, was sitting by her bedside.
Elizabeth joined the royal family during what turned out to be a time of transition for the British Empire. The Commonwealth, at least in the eyes of the British, was a poor replacement for the empire, which had been utterly disbanded. New countries were emerging, including the USA and the USSR.
Despite the shifting political landscape internationally, she and her husband, and Queen Elizabeth II after them, set an example for the British people. Her determination, which was encouraged by her inherent dignity, is what has given her popularity longevity.
Estimated net worth
The estimated net worth of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is about $10 million.