Information about Queen Mother

Queen mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort (a queen dowager) whose son or daughter from that union is the reigning monarch.^[1] The term has been used in England since at least 1577.^[2]

Origin and similar terms

The wife of a king is a queen consort. The widow of a king is a queen dowager (or dowager queen). If the dowager queen is the mother of the next monarch, she is also the queen mother, in those countries that use the tradition.

Where a king was married more than once and a previous wife is still living, only the most recent wife is the queen dowager (and only if she was still married to him at his death). If one of the other queens is the mother of the reigning monarch, that person is not normally described as queen mother because she is not queen dowager - but there may be circumstances to allow a subjective exception.

For example, Victoria, the Duchess of Kent, reputedly thought she was queen mother when her daughter acceded to the throne as Queen Victoria. But the Duke of Kent had never been king, so she had never been queen - thus, she was not queen mother, despite being the Queen's mother. Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark (see below) was an exception to this rule.

Likewise, Princess Muna al-Hussein, as mother of King Abdullah II of Jordan is the King's mother - but she is not Queen mother, because she was not given the title queen while she was married to King Hussein (she was his second wife).

There is no established masculine equivalent to the term – had Albert, Prince Consort survived Queen Victoria, instead of the other way around, he would not have been called "Prince Father" or any like title with respect to his reigning son Edward VII.

The grandmother of a reigning monarch who was queen mother in reference to an earlier monarch in the same line is a "dowager queen mother" and retains the style of Majesty, though this circumstance rarely occurs. An example is Queen Mary, queen dowager of George V, who was queen mother with respect to her son George VI, and survived to be the living grandmother of the reigning sovereign Elizabeth II from 1952 to 1953. She was not queen mother during the reign of her son Edward VIII, as there was no other queen then.

Recent British Queens mother

The following queens became queens mother, though not all chose to use that style.

• Queen Alexandra (1844–1925) — widow of Edward VII and mother of George V.
• Queen Mary (1867–1953) — widow of George V and mother of kings Edward VIII and George VI. Queen Mary never used the title Queen Mother, choosing instead to be known as "Queen Mary" and that style was used to describe her in the Court Circular. But she was a queen mother just the same, and when her granddaughter acceded to the throne as Elizabeth II became monarch in 1952, she became dowager queen mother.
• Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900–2002) — the widow of George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth was so enormously popular she was often referred to as the Queen Mum, and the term "Queen Mother" remains associated with her after her death. She is the only person to have been accorded the official title of "Queen Mother"

Main article: English and British Queen Mothers

Other Queens mother

The title queen mother has been widely used. Other well-known queens mother include:

• Blanche of Castile — Queen mother of France (1226–1252)
• Bona Sforza - Queen mother of Poland-Lithuania (1548– 1557)
• Catherine de' Medici — Queen mother of France (1559–1589)
• Maria of Medici — Queen mother of France (1610–1642)
• Anne of Austria - Queen mother of France (1643–1666)
• Margaret of Savoy — Queen mother of Italy (1900–1926)
• Maria Christina of Austria — Queen mother of Spain (1906–1929)
• Ingrid of Sweden — Queen mother of Denmark (1972–2000)

Exceptional cases

• Elena of Greece — wife, from 1921–1928, of the future Carol II of Romania, and mother of King Michael of Romania. In circumstances that read like a soap opera, Michael first ruled from 1927–1930, before his father was king (and again after his father abdicated), and gave his mother the title. Thus, she became queen mother without having been queen. She subsequently divorced playboy Carol in 1928, before he became king in 1930.
• Similarly, Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur was the third wife of her husband, the monarch, but not the mother of his successor, a son by the king's first wife. She however has been accorded the title of Rajmata, or queen mother anyway.
• The Valide Sultan, the mother of an Ottoman Sultan, is sometimes referred to as queen mother.

Mistaken identity

• Queen Noor of Jordan is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the queen mother of Jordan. But while she is the widow of King Hussein and was his fourth wife, the current king, Abdullah II, is not her son; he's her step-son. His mother is Princess Muna al-Hussein (mentioned above).

King Mother

Diana, Princess of Wales reportedly once suggested to journalist Andrew Morton (author of Diana: Her True Story) that when her son, Prince William of Wales became king, she would be known as King Mother. (Source: Andrew Morton, interviewed by Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show on RTÉ.) No such designation has ever officially existed, nor is there independent evidence that such terminology was ever considered. Queen mother means "queen who is mother to the current monarch", not "mother of the queen"; "King Mother" is a contradiction in terms.

However, of note, and possibly Diana's basis for the idea, is the style, during her son's reign, held by Lady Margaret Beaufort - My Lady The Kinges Mother.

References