‘England Expects’ was the watchword of the Age of Empire into which she was born. She was of the last generation of aristocrats who felt able to accept their superior social position with no feeling of guilt but rather a sense of duty and of obligation. Her own Christian principles, instilled by her parents, gave her grace and an inner strength throughout her life. Allied to that was her sense of joy. The happy, mischievous spirit in her letters to Beryl Poignand was still there more than eight decades later.
It would not be quite correct to say that she had a common touch – rather that she had an innate ability, inherited and learned, to mix with everyone. This was first apparent in her friendships with the wounded soldiers at Glamis during the First World War. Throughout her life she dealt without condescension to those less fortunate or less prominent than herself, and treated those in higher positions, like King George V and Queen Mary, with respect.
After she married the Duke of York she immediately transformed his life, bringing him the love, understanding, sympathy and support for which he had always craved. She inspired him, she calmed him and she enabled him for the first time in his life to believe in himself. Her sense of humour awoke his own, her natural gaiety lightened him. Their marriage was a rare union in which each complemented and enhanced the other. Their joy in each other and in their children fulfilled public expectations in an age when the Royal Family was seen as a model and an ideal.
In 1936, without the added confidence which his wife had imparted to him, and the loyal and loving support which she and their children continued to give him, the Duke of York might never have been able to make a success of his unwanted kingship after his brother’s abrupt departure. Even before her coronation the unexpected Queen adapted to the new demands and responsibilities that were upon her. ‘We are not afraid. I feel that God has enabled us to face the situation calmly,’ she wrote at the time.2 Thereafter she discovered how well her vivid and open personality was suited to the role.
In the thirty-two months they had before the war broke out, the King and Queen came to embody the cause of the democracies both at home and abroad, in their visits to France, Canada and the United States. The Queen was a triumph wherever she went, though the affection she and the King won in America did not quickly translate into wartime support. On their return from Canada in summer 1939, the nation cheered them home. Harold Nicolson expressed a widely shared belief when he wrote, ‘She is in truth one of the most amazing Queens since Cleopatra.’3
Her horror at the prospect of another war so soon after 1918 led her, like the King, to support Chamberlain’s efforts to avoid it, but once war was declared she committed herself totally to victory. ‘Humanity must fight against bad things if we are to survive, and the spiritual things are stronger than anything else, and cannot be destroyed, thank God.’4 No one can measure the importance of the Queen’s presence alongside the King in London throughout the war. During the brutal days of the Blitz their unannounced appearances among the rubble of bombed homes brought immense comfort. There could perhaps never be a better symbol of the difference between constitutional monarchy and dictatorship than the way in which the King and Queen endured the war alongside their people until victory was achieved. ‘For him we had admiration, for her adoration’ summed up the views of many.5 And for her part she never faltered in her belief in the British people.
Peace in 1945 brought new anxieties, particularly for the King, as Britain’s Labour government embarked upon not only reconstruction but also radical reform. The Queen was not naturally predisposed to such changes, but she never lost her optimism; she and the King looked forward eagerly to the future and when he fell ill she always believed that he would recover.
When the King died in February 1952, grief overwhelmed her. Perhaps only her family and a few close friends knew how much she had depended on her husband and how much his loss undermined her. Her anguish was profound. Her spontaneous purchase of the Castle of Mey was a symptom of her grief, but it was a happy decision. Though impractical and expensive to run, the only home she ever owned gave her and her friends much pleasure for the rest of her life.
Once she had recovered her equilibrium, she brought to her new role a distinctive combination of wisdom, sympathy and vivacity, underpinned by a sturdy determination. She sometimes said to friends, ‘I am not as nice as I seem,’ and as a young woman she had written, ‘What a lot of our life we spend in acting.’6 But that’s true enough of most of humanity, after all; what matters is the use to which the ‘seeming niceness’ and the acting are put. Queen Elizabeth’s natural charm and inbred good manners undoubtedly helped her achieve what she wanted, both personally and in her public role. But it would be wrong to dismiss those qualities as a façade. In personal terms, the devotion of her family, friends and, perhaps above all, employees speaks for itself. In public the enduring, unflagging interest and sympathy she showed for others over so many decades – no doubt with occasional bouts of acting – surely reveals a genuine engagement, answered by the genuine popularity she earned. Her unaffected enjoyment of the good things of life, especially dry martinis and champagne, and her indulgence in horseracing, both the most aristocratic of sports and the most popular form of gambling, won her great affection. Her joie de vivre was such that all of her life she lit up not only rooms that she entered but every occasion in which she took part. The name which she took, Queen Mother, she did not at first like but the title came quickly to symbolize the role she played in both her family and the nation.
She loved to preserve. The England in which she grew up was a home, filled with familiar and well-loved rituals. Many of these became unfashionable in the second half of her life. But she still treasured them – in her regiments, her ships, her universities and her 300 or so charities and other organizations. By celebrating traditions, she both enriched and prolonged them in a more impatient age. The remarkable breadth of her patronages gave her a public presence and, indeed, influence in many areas of national life. This could have been difficult for the Queen but her mother never usurped her daughter’s position. Deeply conscious of the monarch’s role, Queen Elizabeth always remained in the picture but never placed herself in the centre of the frame. She was always aware that it is a principal task of a hereditary monarch to pass the crown to someone well prepared for this unique responsibility, and she rejoiced in the success of her daughter. Indeed, during the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, which was celebrated only weeks after her mother’s death, millions of people across the country displayed their enthusiasm for Elizabeth II, providing remarkable proof of the affection which the monarch and the institution still enjoyed. They sensed that both Queens embodied the Shakespearean royal ideal of ‘Christian service and true chivalry’.
Queen Elizabeth’s dislike of change may have slowed down the pace of royal reform which is always necessary to retain consent. There were changes which the Queen and her advisers might have chosen to make earlier, had there been no concern about upsetting Queen Elizabeth. Against this must be weighed the fact that her remarkable popularity helped soften criticism of the monarchy, particularly in the miseries of the 1990s. The press had become unforgiving of almost everyone else in the family, but she remained largely above criticism. Even her extravagance was accepted, and usually with a smile – because of who she was. In those family crises, she was sometimes criticized for not intervening directly in the lives of her grandchildren. But that is never easy in any family; she saw her task rather to support and sustain the Queen in any way she could throughout not only the annus horribilis but the rest of that painful decade.
The core of her popularity and the major feature of the second half of her life was surely her permanence, both in her principles and in the pattern of her life. As she grew older, she showed great courage in not allowing the infirmities of the years to compel her into retirement. There was something immensely reassuring in her insistence on carrying out her commitments year after year, and the stamina which enabled her to do so. Brita
in changed enormously but she remained constant. This had particular resonance for all those who were feeling rudderless in the wake of the immense social upheavals of the late twentieth century. Her high spirits and her love of the traditions and the quirkiness of Britain were an inspiration to millions.
In closing, one could recall that at the beginning of the Second World War, the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to her, ‘I feel inclined to say to Your Majesty what was said in the Bible story to Queen Esther – “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this.” ’7 That was true in 1939 and it remained so to the end of her life.
* See above, this page.
Queen Elizabeth’s Patronages
Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society
1937–2002
Patroness 1937–1958; Patron 1958–2002
R. Academy of Arts American Associates (Sir Hugh and Lady Casson Fund)
1996
R. Academy of Dramatic Art
1931–2002
R. Academy of Music
1937–2002
Adelaide Festival of Arts
1960–1999
Aged Christian Friend Society
1937–2002
As Duchess of York, Countess of Inverness – Patron of Inverness Branch 1936–1937
Albany, The
1937–2002
Formerly the Deptford Fund and the Princess Alice New Albany Foundation
Aldeburgh Festival
1974–2002
Ancoats Hospital
1926–2002
Archer House Convalescent Fund
1931–1965
1965–1968
Formerly Archer House Home for Nurses. Subsequently administered by National Fund for Nurses
R. Agricultural Society of England
1959
Trustee
1960
President
1998
Hon. Trustee
Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
1953–2002
President
R. Association for Disability & Rehabilitation
1976–2002
Formerly Central Council for the Care of Cripples, then Central Council for the Disabled (1929–1976), amalgamated with the British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled
Australian Red Cross Society
1941–2002
Bar Musical Society
1957–2002
Barnardo’s
1936–2002
Formerly Dr Barnardo’s
Barrowmore Village Settlement
1953–2002
Bath Club, Ladies’ Section
1937–1958?
Hon. Member 1936
Patroness 1937 until the Club closed
Battle of Britain Fighter Association
1977–2002
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Historic Churches Trust
1992–2002
Benenden Healthcare Society
1952–2002
Formerly (Post Office and) Civil Service Sanatorium Society
Benevolent Society of St Patrick
1955–2002
Bible Reading Fellowship
1952–2002
Bible Society
1943–2002
Formerly British and Foreign Bible Society
Birkbeck College
1937–2002
Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind
1937–2002
R. Blind Asylum and School, Edinburgh
1937–2002
Bomber Command Association
1987–2002
Botanical Society of the British Isles
1965–2002
Botanical Society of Scotland
1950–2002
Brendoncare Foundation
1983–2002
Bridewell Royal Hospital (King Edward’s School, Witley)
1953–2002
President
Britain in Bloom Competitions
1976–1989
British-American Benevolent Association
1937–1977
Formerly Queen Victoria Hospital, Nice
British & International Sailors’ Society
1937–2002
Formerly British Sailors Society
British Commonwealth Ex-Services League (Women’s Auxiliaries)
1949–2002
British Commonwealth Nurses War Memorial Fund
1946–1995
Formerly British Empire Nurses War Memorial Fund
British Dental Hospital
1926–1948
British Equine Veterinary Association
1968–2002
British Home and Hospital for Incurables, Streatham
1925–2002
British Homeopathic Association
1982–2002
British Hospital for Mothers and Babies, Woolwich
1953–1984
Hospital closed
R. British Legion Women’s Section
1924–2002
President
R. British Legion Scotland (Women’s Section)
1936–2002
Grand President
British Orthopaedic Association
1959–2002
British Records Association
1952–2002
British Red Cross Society
1937–2002
President 1937–1952
Vice/Deputy President 1952–1998
President 1998–2002
British Sporting Art Trust
1977–2002
British Theatre Association
1952–1990
Formerly British Drama League
R. Brompton National Heart & Lung Hospital
1937–2002
Formerly Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest
Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Fund
1982–2002
Caithness Agricultural Society
1970–2002
Caithness Heritage Trust
1991–2002
R. Caledonian Horticultural Society
1937–2002
R. Caledonian Schools Trust
1937–2002
Patroness
R. Cambrian Academy of Art
1937–2002
Cambridge Arts Theatre Trust
1981–2002
Canada Memorial Foundation
1989–1994
Patron-in-Chief
Canadian Merchant Navy Prisoner of War Association
1994–2002
Canadian Mothercraft Society
1931–2002
Canadian Red Cross Society
1939–2002
Careers for Women
1939–1993
Formerly Women’s Employment Federation (–1972) then National Advisory Centre on Careers for Women (–1990)
Cassel Hospital
1954–2002
Formerly Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders
Cavalry & Guards Club (Ladies Side)
1976–2002
Formerly Guards’ Club (Ladies’ Annexe) 1937–1972
Centre for Policy on Ageing
1950–2002
Formerly National Corporation for the Care of Old People
Charing Cross Hospital
1937–2002
Chelsea Physic Garden
1984–2002
First Patron
Children’s Country Holidays Fund
1925–2002
Children’s Hospital at Westmead, The
1927–2002
Formerly Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney
Children’s Society, The
1924–2002
Formerly the Church of England Children’s Society
Church Army
1943–2002
Church of England Soldiers’, Sailors and Airmen’s Clubs
1937–2002
Church of England Temperance Society
1937–1967
Cinque Ports Mayors Association
1980–2002
First Patron
R. Cinque Ports Yacht Club
1978–2002
President
City & Metropolitan Welfare Charity
1937–1972
Formerly Metropolitan Convalescent Institution
Civil Defence Welfare Fund
1940–1950s?
Formerly Civil Defence (Services) Comforts Fund
Civil Service Retirement Fellowship
1977–2002
The Queen Mother Page 122