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.

Early life

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, Nina Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. She reportedly was born in her parents' London home, though the location of her birth remains uncertain. Her birth was registered at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, near the Strathmores' country house St. Paul's Walden Bury. This unconventional registration has led to numerous rumours over the years regarding Elizabeth's actual parentage, with some critics surmising that she actually was the daughter of the Lord Strathmore by a Welsh maid, hence the unusual six-week delay in the registration of her birth. Others have pointed out that Elizabeth, born seven years after the next-youngest Bowes-Lyon child, resembled neither her parents nor her siblings in any discernible fashion. An urban myth in the 1960s even claimed that she adopted by the Earl and Countess and was in fact one of twins born to a working class woman in Waterford in Ireland. The rumour even claimed that she was in fact a couple of years older than had been announced. The rumour was universally dismissed. A distant family link between the Bowes-Lyon family and the Waterford area is believed to be the cause of the rumours. See Royalty and urban legends.

Related Topics:
Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis - Nina Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck - London - Hitchin - Hertfordshire - St. Paul's Walden Bury - Urban myth - 1960s - Working class - Waterford - Ireland - Royalty and urban legends

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She spent much of her childhood at St. Paul's Walden Bury and at Glamis Castle, the Earl's ancestral home in Scotland.

Related Topics:
Glamis Castle - Scotland

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The First World War broke out when she was 14. Her elder brother, Fergus, an officer in the Black Watch Regiment, was killed in action at Loos, France 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 convalescence home for wounded soldiers, which Elizabeth helped to run. One of the soldiers she treated wrote on a card that she was to be "Hung, drawn and quartered: hung in diamonds, drawn by the best carriages, and quartered in the finest palaces in the land."

Related Topics:
The First World War - Officer - Black Watch - Loos - France - 1915 - May - 1917 - Prisoner of War

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