Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne
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Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne KG KT GCVO TD (14 March 1855–7 November 1944) was a landowner and the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.
From 1937 he was known as "14th and 1st Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne", because he was the 14th Earl in the peerage of Scotland but the 1st Earl in the peerage of the United Kingdom.
He was born at Lowndes Square in London, the son of Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and his wife, the former Frances Dora Smith.[1]
After being educated at Eton College he received a commission in the 2nd Life Guards. He served for six years until the year after his marriage[2] to Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck on 16 July 1881, at Petersham, Surrey.[1]
The couple had ten children, of which they were very fond. The Earl would part his moustache in a theatrical but courteous gesture before kissing them[3]:
| Name | Birth | Death | Age | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Hon Violet Hyacinth Bowes-Lyon | 17 April 1882 | 17 October 1893 | 11 years | Named after the Earl's favourite flowers, she died from diphtheria and was buried at Ham church.[4] She was never styled 'Lady' because she died before her father succeeded to the Earldom. |
| The Lady Mary Frances Bowes-Lyon | 30 August 1883 | 8 February 1961 | 77 years | Married 1910, Sidney Elphinstone, 16th Lord Elphinstone; had issue. |
| Patrick Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later 15th and 2nd Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) |
22 September 1884 | 25 May 1949 | 64 years | Married 1908, Lady Dorothy Osborne (daughter of George Osborne, 10th Duke of Leeds); had issue. |
| Lieutenant The Hon. John Bowes-Lyon | 1 April 1886 | 7 February 1930 | 53 years | Married 1914, The Hon. Fenella Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (daughter of Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton); had issue. |
| The Hon. Alexander Francis Bowes-Lyon | 14 April 1887 | October 19, 1911 | 24 years | Died unmarried in his sleep of a tumour at the base of the cerebrum.[5] |
| Captain The Hon. Fergus Bowes-Lyon | 18 April 1889 | 26 September 1915 | 26 years | Married 1914, Lady Christian Dawson-Damer (daughter of Lionel Dawson-Damer, 5th Earl of Portarlington); had issue. |
| The Lady Rose Constance Bowes-Lyon | 6 May 1890 | 17 November 1967 | 77 years | Married 1916, William Leveson-Gower, 4th Earl Granville; had issue |
| Lieutenant-Colonel The Hon. Michael Claude Hamilton Bowes-Lyon | 1 October 1893 | 1 May 1953 | 59 years | Married 1928, Elizabeth Cator; had issue; died of asthma and heart failure in Bedfordshire. He was a Prisoner of War during World War I.[6] |
| The Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon | 4 August 1900 | 30 March 2002 | 101 years | Married 1923, Prince Albert, Duke of York, later King George VI. In later life was known as Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother; had issue. |
| The Hon. Sir David Bowes-Lyon | 2 May 1902 | 13 September 1961 | 59 years | Married 1929, Rachel Clay; had issue |
On succeeding his father to the Earldom on 16 February 1904, he inherited large estates in Scotland and England, including Glamis Castle, St Paul's Walden Bury, and Woolmers Park, near Hertford.[2] He was made Lord Lieutenant of Angus[7], an office he resigned when his daughter became Queen.
Despite The Earl's reservations about royalty,[8] in 1923 his youngest daughter, Elizabeth, married the King's second son Prince Albert, Duke of York, and to mark the marriage Lord Strathmore was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Five years later he was made a Knight of the Thistle.[9]
In 1936 his son-in-law's brother, King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, abdicated and his son-in-law became King. As the Queen Consort's father, he was created a Knight of the Garter and Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in the Coronation Honours of 1937. This enabled him to sit in the House of Lords as an Earl (he had previously sat only as a Baron through the Barony of Bowes created for his father).[9]
He had a keen interest in forestry, and was one of the first to grow larch from seed in Britain. His estates had a large number of smallholders and he had a reputation for being unusually kind to his tenants.[10] He was an active member of the Territorial Army and served as Honorary Colonel of the 4th/5th Battalion of the Black Watch.[2] His younger brother, Patrick Bowes-Lyon won the 1887 Wimbledon doubles.
The Earl made his own cocoa for breakfast, and always had a jug of water by his place at dinner so he could dilute his own wine. Later in life he became extremely deaf.[11] Lord Strathmore died at the age of 89 at Glamis Castle in Angus of bronchitis.[12] (Lady Strathmore had died in 1938).[2] He was succeeded by his son, Patrick Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis.
[edit] Footnotes and sources
- ^ a b White, Geoffrey and Cokayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage, St Catherine’s Press, London, 1953; vol. XII, p. 402-3
- ^ a b c d The Times (London), Wednesday, November 8, 1944 p.7 col.C
- ^ Vickers, p.4
- ^ Vickers, p.7
- ^ Vickers, p.13
- ^ Vickers, p.320
- ^ The county of Angus was called Forfarshire until 1928
- ^ Vickers, p.45
- ^ a b Mosley, Charles, (ed.) Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, Burke’s Peerage and Gentry LLC, 2003; vol. III, p. 3783-4.
- ^ Grant, F. J., Lyon, Claude George Bowes-, fourteenth earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the peerage of Scotland, and first earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the peerage of the United Kingdom (1855–1944), Rev. K. D. Reynolds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- ^ Vickers, p.5
- ^ Vickers, p.247
[edit] Reference
- Vickers, Hugo, Elizabeth: The Queen Mother (Arrow Books/Random House, 2006) ISBN 9780099476627
| Preceded by Claude Bowes-Lyon |
Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne | Succeeded by Patrick Bowes-Lyon |
| Preceded by New Creation |
Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne |
