Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the last queen consort of Ireland and empress consort of India.
Born into a family of British nobility as The Honourable Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, she became Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon when her father inherited the Scottish Earldom of Strathmore and Kinghorne in 1904. In 1923, she married Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. As Duchess of York, she – along with her husband and their two daughters Elizabeth and Margaret – embodied traditional ideas of family and public service.
In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became King when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Queen Elizabeth accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of World War II.
During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. In recognition of her role as an asset to British morale, Adolf Hitler described her as "the most dangerous woman in Europe". After the war, her husband's health deteriorated and she was widowed at the age of 51.
On the death of her mother-in-law Queen Mary in 1953she became the senior member of the British Royal Family. Consistently popular, she continued an active public life until just a few months before her death at the age of 101, seven weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.