British queen mothers

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was styled "Queen Mother" during her widowhood.

The title of queen mother is defined as "a queen dowager who is the mother of the reigning sovereign". The term has been used in English since at least 1560.

Definition

A queen mother is a person satisfying the following criteria:

• She is the mother of the current monarch.
• She is a queen dowager, i.e. the widow of a king.

Queen mother does not mean mother of the Queen; it applies whether the current monarch is queen or king.

As a queen dowager, a queen mother assumes the style of "Her Majesty Queen [first name]" upon her husband’s death.

List of Queen Mothers

The following is a list of women who can be classified as Queen Mother at some point in their lives.

English Queen Mothers (title not used in earlier periods)

House of Wessex

• 978–1000 Ælfthryth, (the first King's wife known to have been crowned and anointed as Queen of the Kingdom of England), widow of Edgar, mother of Æthelred the Unready.
• 1042–1052 Emma of Normandy, mother of Edward the Confessor by her first husband Æthelred the Unready.

House of Denmark

• 1040–1042 Emma of Normandy, mother of Harthacnut by her second husband Cnut the Great.

House of Plantagenet

• 1189–1204 Eleanor of Aquitaine, widow of Henry II, mother of Richard I and King John.
• 1216–1246 Isabella of Angoulême, widow of John, mother of Henry III.
• 1272–1291 Eleanor of Provence, widow of Henry III, mother of Edward I.
• 1327–1358 Isabella of France, widow of Edward II, mother of Edward III.

House of Lancaster

• 1422–1437 Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, mother of Henry VI.

House of York

• April–June 1483 Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV, Queen Mother during the 86-day reign of her son Edward V, until Edward was deposed by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester and later disappeared as one of the Princes in the Tower.

Scottish Queen Mothers (title not used in earlier periods)

House of Dunkeld

• 1214–1233 Ermengarde de Beaumont, widow of William the Lion, mother of Alexander II.
• 1249–1285 Marie de Coucy, widow of Alexander II, mother of Alexander III.

House of Stuart

• 1437–1445 Joan Beaufort, widow of James I, mother of James II.
• 1460–1463 Mary of Guelders, widow of James II, mother of James III.
• 1513–1541 Margaret Tudor, widow of James IV, mother of James V.
• 1542–1560 Mary of Guise, widow of James V, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

English and Scottish Queen Mothers (post Union of the Crowns)

House of Stuart

• 1660–1669 Henrietta Maria of France, widow of Charles I, mother of Charles II. Although Charles I was executed in 1649, she became Queen Mother only in 1660 upon the restoration of her son Charles II.

British Queen Mothers

House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, renamed the House of Windsor in 1917

Queen	Portrait	Arms	Birth	Late Husband	Death	Title Held	Notes
	Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia of Denmark		1 December 1844 Daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel	Edward VII	20 November 1925 80 years, 354 days	1910–1925	preferred not to use the title
	Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes of Teck		26 May 1867 Daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge	George V	24 March 1953 85 years, 302 days	1936–1952
	Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon		4 August 1900 Daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck	George VI	30 March 2002 101 years, 238 days	1952–2002	her fifty-year widowhood is the longest that anyone has held the status of Queen Mother.

Sources

• Dictionary of National Biography
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Chambers Biographical Dictionary
• Encyclopædia Britannica