For Queen's Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon: 'A woman of grace', by Geroge Carey - 2002

9 April 2002, Westminster Abbey, London, United Kingdom

We gather in this great Abbey to mourn and to give thanks. It is a fitting place to do so, a place where the story of our nation and the story of the woman we now commend to her Heavenly Father are intertwined.

It was here that Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was married and became Duchess of York; it was here that she was crowned Queen; it was here that, as Queen Mother, she attended the coronation of her own daughter. It is fitting, then, that a place that stood at the centre of her life should now be the place where we honour her passing.

In the 10 days since she left us, there have been countless tributes and expressions of affection and respect — including those of the many people who have queued and filed patiently past her coffin lying-in-state.

How should we explain the numbers? Not just by the great length of a life, famously lived to the full. It has to do with her giving of herself so readily and openly.

There was about her, in George Eliot’s lovely phrase, “the sweet presence of a good diffused”.

Like the sun, she bathed us in her warm glow. Now that the sun has set and the cool of the evening has come, some of the warmth we absorbed is flowing back towards her.

If there is one verse of scripture which captures her best, it is perhaps the description of a gracious woman in the final chapter of the book of Proverbs. It says: “Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.”

Strength, dignity and laughter — three great gifts which we honour and celebrate today.

The Queen Mother’s strength as a person was expressed best through the remarkable quality of her dealings with people — her ability to make all human encounters, however fleeting, feel both special and personal.

As her eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, I can vouch for that strength.

Something of it is reflected in the fact that for half a century we knew her and understood her as the Queen Mother. It is a title whose resonance lies less in its official status than in expressing one of the most fundamental of all roles and relationships — that of simply being a mother, a mum, the Queen Mum.

For her family, that maternal strength — given across the generations to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — has been a precious gift and blessing.

Its loss is felt keenly today. And as they grieve, we say to the Queen and to Prince Philip; to Charles, Anne, Andrew, Edward, David and Sarah as grandchildren; and to all their children: you are in our thoughts and cradled in our prayers and those of countless millions round the world.

The very first letter Elizabeth wrote on becoming Queen in the traumatic and daunting circumstances of 1936 was to one of my predecessors as Archbishop of Canterbury. It gives a further insight into the source of her strength.

She wrote: “I can hardly believe that we have been called to this tremendous task… and the curious thing is we are not afraid.”

With her openness to people, indeed as part of it, came a quiet courage. A courage manifest in wartime and widowhood, a courage that endured to the end.

Strength, dignity and laughter.

There was certainly nothing remote or distant about her own sense of dignity. Her smile, her wave, the characteristic tilt of her head: all made the point immediately and beyond words. It was a dignity that rested not on the splendid trappings of royalty, but on a sense of the nobility of service.

On their wedding day here, the Archbishop of York spoke to the newly married couple of their life together: “We cannot resolve that it shall be happy,” he said, “but you can and will resolve that it shall be noble.”

And indeed it was. An unfailing sense of service and duty made it so. It was a commitment nourished by the Queen Mother’s Christian faith. A faith that told her, as it tells us all, that even the Son of God came into the world as a servant, not as a master.

Strength, dignity and, yes, laughter.

We come here to mourn but also to give thanks, to celebrate the person and her life — both filled with such a rich sense of fun and joy and the music of laughter.

With it went an immense vitality that did not fail her. Hers was a great old age, but not a cramped one. She remained young at heart, and the young themselves sensed that.

Of course, the laughter of the book of Proverbs goes deeper than a good joke or a witty reply. “She laughs at the time to come”: such laughter reflects an attitude of confident hope in the face of adversity and the unpredictable challenges of life.

Of this laughter too, the Queen Mother knew a great deal. It was rooted in the depth and simplicity of her abiding faith that this life is to be lived to the full as a preparation for the next.

Her passing was truly an Easter death — poised between Good Friday and Easter Day. In the light of the promise that Easter brings, we will lay her to rest knowing that the same hope belongs to all who trust in the One who is the resurrection and the life.

Strength, dignity, laughter — three special qualities, earthed in her Christian faith. Qualities that clothed her life so richly. Qualities that with her passing, we too — by the grace of God — may seek to put on afresh, in our own lives and the life of our nation and world. Let that be part of her legacy, part of our tribute.

And lastly this: for the book of Proverbs has more to say about a gracious woman; words we can summon now as we commend to her Heavenly Father his faithful servant Elizabeth — Queen, Queen Mother, Queen Mum — deeply loved and greatly missed.

It simply says of a woman of grace: “Many have done excellently, but you exceed them all

for King George VI: 'All these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration', by Winston Churchill

7 February 1952, London, United Kingdom

My friends

When the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of twentieth-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them. A new sense of values took, for the time being, possession of human minds, and mortal existence presented itself to so many at the same moment in its serenity and in its sorrow, in its splendour and in its pain, in its fortitude and in its suffering.

The King was greatly loved by all his peoples. He was respected as a man and as a prince far beyond the many realms over which he reigned. The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty - alike as a ruler and a servant of the vast spheres and communities for which he bore responsibility - his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father in his own family circle, his courage in peace or war - all these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration, now here, now there, from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne.

We thought of him as a young naval lieutenant in the great Battle of Jutland. We thought of him when calmly, without ambition, or want of self-confidence, he assumed the heavy burden of the Crown and succeeded his brother whom he loved and to whom he had rendered perfect loyalty. We thought of him, so faithful in his study and discharge of State affairs; so strong in his devotion to the enduring honour of our country; so self-restrained in his judgments of men and affairs; so uplifted above the clash of party politics, yet so attentive to them; so wise and shrewd in judging between what matters and what does not.

All this we saw and admired. His conduct on the Throne may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations. The last few months of King George's life, with all the pain and physical stresses that he endured - his life hanging by a thread from day to day, and he all the time cheerful and undaunted, stricken in body but quite undisturbed and even unaffected in spirit - these have made a profound and an enduring impression and should be a help to all.

He was sustained not only by his natural buoyancy, but by the sincerity of his Christian faith. During these last months the King walked with death as if death were a companion, an acquaintance whom he recognized and did not fear. In the end death came as a friend, and after a happy day of sunshine and sport, and after "good night" to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else in the world may hope to do.

The nearer one stood to him the more these facts were apparent. But the newspapers and photographs of modern times have made vast numbers of his subjects able to watch with emotion the last months of his pilgrimage. We all saw him approach his journey's end. In this period of mourning and meditation, amid our cares and toils, every home in all the realms joined together under the Crown may draw comfort for tonight and strength for the future from his bearing and his fortitude.

There was another tie between King George and his people. It was not only sorrow and affliction that they shared. Dear to the hearts and the homes of the people is the joy and pride of a united family. With this all the troubles of the world can be borne and all its ordeals at least confronted. No family in these tumultuous years was happier or loved one another more than the Royal Family around the King.

No Minister saw so much of the King during the war as I did. I made certain he was kept informed of every secret matter, and the care and thoroughness with which he mastered the immense daily flow of State papers made a deep mark on my mind.

Let me tell you another fact. On one of the days when Buckingham Palace was bombed the King had just returned from Windsor. One side of the courtyard was struck, and if the windows opposite out of which he and the Queen were looking had not been, by the mercy of God, open, they would both have been blinded by the broken glass instead of being only hurled back by the explosion. Amid all that was then going on, although I saw the King so often, I never heard of this episode till a long time after. Their Majesties never mentioned it or thought it of more significance than a soldier in their armies would of a shell bursting near him. This seems to me to be a revealing trait in the royal character.

There is no doubt that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples. In the present generation it has acquired a meaning incomparably more powerful than anyone had dreamed possible in former times. The Crown has become the mysterious link, indeed I may say the magic link, which unites our loosely bound, but strongly interwoven Commonwealth of nations, states, and races....

For fifteen years George VI was King. Never at any moment in all the perplexities at home and abroad, in public or in private, did he fail in his duties. Well does he deserve the farewell salute of all his governments and peoples.

It is at this time that our compassion and sympathy go out to his consort and widow. Their marriage was a love match with no idea of regal pomp or splendour. Indeed, there seemed to be before them only the arduous life of royal personages, denied so many of the activities of ordinary folk and having to give so much in ceremonial public service. May I say - speaking with all freedom - that our hearts go out tonight to that valiant woman, with famous blood of Scotland in her veins, who sustained King George through all his toils and problems, and brought up with their charm and beauty the two daughters who mourn their father today. May she be granted strength to bear her sorrow.

To Queen Mary, his mother, another of whose sons is dead - the Duke of Kent having been killed on active service - there belongs the consolation of seeing how well he did his duty and fulfilled her hopes, and of knowing how much he cared for her.

Now I must leave the treasures of the past and turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptre. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the Throne in her twenty-sixth year, our thoughts are carried back nearly four hundred years to the magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied and inspired the grandeur and genius of the Elizabethan age.

Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessor, did not pass her childhood in any certain expectation of the Crown. But already we know her well, and we understand why her gifts, and those of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, have stirred the only part of the Commonwealth she has yet been able to visit. She has already been acclaimed as Queen of Canada.

We make our claim too, and others will come forward also, and tomorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem, "God save the Queen!"