Free The Queen Mother by William Shawcross Page A

The Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, The Duchess of Cornwall, Viscount Linley, Lady Sarah Chatto and The Earl of Snowdon for their invaluable assistance. I thank The Queen for permission to quote from material in the Royal Archives, as well as from letters in other collections subject to her copyright, and, above all, I thank Her Majesty for giving me absolute freedom to write as I wished.
    The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, where Queen Elizabeth’s private and official papers are housed, are at the top of a long steep staircase in the Round Tower. I have rarely worked in a more delightful place. During my numerous visits there I was treated with the greatest patience by the Registrar, Pam Clark, and her staff, including Jill Kelsey, Allison Derrett and Angie Barker, and by the former Curator of the Royal Photograph Collection, Frances Dimond. The present Curator, Sophie Gordon, and the Assistant Curator, Lisa Heighway, with Paul Stonell and Alessandro Nasini have done sterling work providing illustrations from Queen Elizabeth’s photograph collection.
    Among the papers to which I was given access in the Royal Archives were the transcripts of conversations which Queen Elizabeth had in 1994 and 1995 with Eric Anderson, who had just retired as head master of Eton College. These, together with Queen Elizabeth’s letters to her family and friends, * were vitally important in providing her own commentary on her life.
    At Glamis Castle, ancestral home of the Bowes Lyon family, by kindness of the eighteenth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne I was able to read more of Queen Elizabeth’s letters among her parents’ papers, as well as other family correspondence which shed light on her early life. I was greatly assisted in my research there by the Archivist, Jane Anderson, who also provided valuable help with picture research. My thanks are due to Lord Strathmore for permission to quote from papers at Glamis and to reproduce photographs from his family albums. Many members of his family were very kind to me; they include his mother Mary, Dowager Countess of Strathmore, who answered my innumerable questions about the family, and his sister Lady Elizabeth Leeming, to whom I am deeply indebted. On my behalf she carried out superb research in the archives at Glamis and elsewhere, interviewed members of her family, and compiled a series of richly informative notes on the family and its homes. Her expertise as both a researcher and an editor was invaluable throughout.
    At St Paul’s Walden Bury, the Queen Mother’s other childhood home, Sir Simon and Lady Bowes Lyon kindly allowed me access to yet more family letters and papers. Among other members of the Bowes Lyon family, I am grateful to Queen Elizabeth’s nieces Lady Mary Clayton, Lady Mary Colman and the Hon. Mrs Rhodes (née Margaret Elphinstone), whose help I have greatly appreciated, and also to Queen Elizabeth’s nephew the Hon. Albemarle Bowes Lyon, to her cousin John Bowes Lyon, and to Rosie Stancer, her great-niece, and her husband William.
    I thank Her Majesty Queen Fabiola of the Belgians for permission to quote a letter she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, Her Majesty The Queen of Denmark for permission to quote from a letter from the late Queen Ingrid, Her Majesty The Queen of the Netherlands for permission to quote from a letter from the late Princess Juliana, and His Majesty The King of Norway for permission to quote from a letter from the late Queen Maud.
    I am indebted to all those who have allowed me to read, and to quote from, their family papers; some of them I have to thank also for permission to quote from letters in which they own the copyright among Queen Elizabeth’s papers at Windsor. They include: the Earl of Airlie,Anne, Countess Attlee, John Dalrymple Hamilton, Viscount Davidson, Eric and Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, Lady Katharine Farrell, George Fergusson, Sir Edmund Grove, the Earl of Halifax, Kate Hall, Richard Hall, Mrs David Hankinson and the Hon. Mrs