Revisit the Queen Mother’s fascinating life in pictures on the 22nd anniversary of her death

The Queen Mother, the beloved grandmother of King Charles III, died 22 years ago today.

Born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on 4 August 1900, the Queen Mother grew up as part of a sprawling aristocratic family – the ninth of 10 children. Her parents were Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (who went on to become the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of Scotland), and his wife, Cecilia (née Cavendish-Bentinck), and Elizabeth spent much of her childhood at St Paul’s Walden in Hertfordshire and Glamis Castle in Scotland.

After marrying the then Prince Albert, second son of King George V, in 1923, few could have predicted the turn Elizabeth’s life would take – catapulted from the Duchess of York to Queen Consort after her brother-in-law, King Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson.

Elizabeth went on to serve alongside her husband, King George VI, from 1936 to 1952 (as well as being the last Empress of India from 1936 until 1947, when the country gained its independence). On the death of her husband in 1952, she was styled as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She continued to play a prominent role in public life, as a beloved Royal Family member and a continuing support to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

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The dazzling royal wedding of Princess Dorothea of Hesse, the late Duke of Edinburgh’s niece

This week in 1959, Princess Dorothea of Hesse was married to Prince Friedrich of Windisch-Graetz in a German royal wedding

By Natasha Leake

The Queen Mother died on 30 March 2002 at the Royal Lodge on the Windsor Great Park estate, with Queen Elizabeth II at her side. The tragic loss came just a month after the death of Princess Margaret aged 71. At the time of her death at the grand age of 101 years and 238 days, the Queen Mother was the longest-living member of the British Royal Family in history. Her record has since been exceeded, however, by her late sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who died in 2004 aged 102.

Here, to commemorate the anniversary of her death, Tatler revisits her life in pictures…

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