Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) as Queen Elizabeth was the Queen consort of George VI of the United Kingdom from 1936 to 1952 and the mother of his successor, Queen Elizabeth II, the current British monarch. From 1952 to her death in 2002 Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was known as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother LG, LT, CI, GCVO, GBE, ONZ, CC, RRC, CD, or, more popularly, the Queen Mum.

Criticisms

Some claim that, contrary to the popular view that the then Queen's wartime visits to the East End were a triumphant boost to morale, the East-Enders marked their first visit by jeering and throwing rubbish, partly because George and Elizabeth were seen as having displaced the widely popular King Edward VIII. Later, when she told an East End crowd that she was one of them because her own house had been bombed, a voice shouted out: "Which one?".

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During the war, the royal family claimed to be surviving on rations like the rest of the population, but (according to Kitty Kelley's 1997 book The Royals) their French chef Rene Roussin later reported that they ate extravagantly, and the then Queen gained 12 pounds in one year. Despite clothes rationing, she also had numerous expensive clothes made, including silk gowns - even though silk was banned from sale as it was required for parachute manufacture. A 1993 article in History Today confirmed that research into records showed that the royal family received far more wartime clothes rationing coupons than their subjects.

Related Topics:
Kitty Kelley - 1997 - The Royals - 1993 - History Today

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In 1953 Marion Crawford, former nanny to the Queen Mother's daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, wrote a book about them, The Little Princesses. Even though the revelations in the book were quite innocuous, its breach of privacy caused an outrage both in the press and the Royal family. The Queen Mother, who had hitherto been a great friend of Crawford, refused ever to speak to her again, as did the rest of the Royal family. A Channel 4 documentary about the incident, The Real Crawfie (broadcast in 2000), portrayed this as a heartless overreaction.http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/crawfie.html

Related Topics:
1953 - Marion Crawford - The Little Princesses - Channel 4 - 2000

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The Queen Mother ensured that her daughters were taught at home by governesses rather than receive a formal education among commoners. When Princess Margaret died, commentators remarked that it was unfortunate that she had been deprived of the opportunity of a proper education (something that she often complained of in later life) as she had been intelligent and talented.http://www.guardian.co.uk/margaret/story/0,7369,647595,00.html Queen Elizabeth herself commented on her poor education at a function with British ministers from Harold Wilson's government in the 1960s. Barbara Castle however told the Queen that whatever shortcomings she had experienced in her childhood education she had more than made up for in adulthood, in Castle's experience.

Related Topics:
Princess Margaret - Harold Wilson - Barbara Castle

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Kitty Kelley quotes Hugh Bygott-Webb as saying that his great-uncle Surgeon Rear-Admiral "Chippy" White had an affair with Elizabeth during the 1947 royal tour of South Africa.

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Like many of her generation who grew up before the appearance of a multi-racial society, Queen Mother reportedly had staunchly right-wing viewshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1058-262368,00.html, which some critics claimed bordered on racism. This may have been referred to obliquely by the report of her death on BBC Radio 4 news, which mentioned her 'old-fashioned' views, as did her obituary in The Times. Kitty Kelley claimed that she often referred to black people as 'nig-nogs' or 'blackamoors', and supported white rule in Rhodesia and the return of capital punishment.http://www.blonnet.com/2002/04/10/stories/2002041000420900.htm

Related Topics:
BBC Radio 4 - The Times - Rhodesia - Capital punishment

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Some claim that at the Duke of Windsor's 1972 funeral, the Queen Mother refused to speak to his wife Wallis Simpson. Kitty Kelley claims that Elizabeth refused to allow Prince Charles to meet Wallis at the airport; and that though she invited Wallis to stay at Buckingham Palace after the funeral, on her arrival the whole royal family departed for Windsor and left her in the palace alone.

Related Topics:
1972 - Kitty Kelley

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Towards the end of her life, the Queen Mother's extravagant lifestyle, including the employment of dozens of personal staff, and a £4m bank overdrafthttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist/person/0,,22990,00.html at Coutts & Co received negative comment, and was remarked upon in some obituaries.http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/03/30/queen.mum.obit/

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The Queen Mother had a penchant for drink and horse racing. Kitty Kelley claimed the former amounted to 'incipient alcoholism', and that her gambling was so extensive she even had her own bookie wire installed in her house to provide up-to-the-minute race results. The Queen Mother's habits were often parodied by the satirical 1980s television programme Spitting Image - portraying her with a cockney accent (a comment on her seldom speaking publicly and on her wartime visits to the East End) and an ever-present copy of the Racing Times. One episode depicted her competing with Princess Margaret (also known for drinking) in an arm-wrestling match for a bottle of vodka.

Related Topics:
Television - Spitting Image - Cockney - Racing Times - Princess Margaret

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In 1987 it was revealed that she had two nieces Katherine Bowes-Lyon and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon. Both were long-term patients in a psychiatric hospital but the Royal Family had told Burke's Peerage that the sisters had died decades earlier. When Nerissa finally did die, her grave was initially marked only with a plastic tag and a serial number. http://www.sundayherald.com/23673 Critics highlighted the story as an example of Elizabeth's indifference and cruelty to the plight of some family members. Supporters and some historians in response said she did no more than behave as had been the norm for people of her class and generation towards mentally ill members of her family. (Comparisons were made with the treatment of her parents-in-law of her brother-in-law, Prince John of the United Kingdom.)

Related Topics:
1987 - Katherine Bowes-Lyon - Nerissa Bowes-Lyon - Psychiatric hospital - Burke's Peerage - Prince John of the United Kingdom

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Though rarely reported at the time, towards the end of her life there were increasing signs in some quarters of dissatisfaction with the widespread media and public deference towards the Queen Mother, particularly surrounding her 100th birthday. For example, a late-night TV show by controversial comic Victor Lewis-Smith included children singing a song When will the Queen Mother die? http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:OcuSnBuyuyUJ:www.corpses.comedynetuk.com/editnews/victorlewis.html+%22Queen+Mother%22+%22Victor+Lewis-Smith%22&hl=en&start=3%20target=nw Stickers, T-shirts and even balloons were widely distributed by radical groups bearing slogans such as Queen Mum hurry up and diehttp://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/interviews/article206145.ecehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,13755,1026661,00.html. Some people marked the Queen Mother's 100th birthday with anti-Royal demonstrations.http://members.fortunecity.com/londonpics1/Festivals/lizzie2.htm

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In early 2000, several boxes of papers belonging to Sir Walter Monckton were released by Oxford University?s Bodleian Library, and it was discovered that several items from just before World War Two were missing, including correspondence between the Queen Mother (then Queen), and the pro-appeasement Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax. According to ?a senior government figure? quoted by The Independent On Sunday, the missing letters concerned the Queen Mother?s desire for the preservation of the Monarchy in the event of a Nazi occupation of the United Kingdom.http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4477_129/ai_61637977

Related Topics:
2000 - Walter Monckton - Bodleian Library - World War Two - Appeasement - The Independent On Sunday

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The papers are now in the Royal Archives, where they are expected to be released in 2037, one century after Queen Elizabeth's coronation.

Related Topics:
Royal Archives - 2037

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