Talk:Queen mother

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[edit] Diana, Princess of Wales

"Diana, Princess of Wales suggested to Andrew Morton, a journalist with whom she secretly worked on the book Diana: Her True Story that when her son, Prince William of Wales became king, she would be known as King Mother." Was this to be in the event that the succession skipped Charles and she had never been crowned Queen (consort)? In that case, it's not as silly as it otherwise seems. Hugh7 09:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly. When Charles ended his reign and William would (apparently) take over, then Diana would receive the title of Queen Mother. I added NPOV and Citation tags to the section as I believe the ENTIRE section is simply conjecture. Jmlk17 03:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generic term?

Isn't 'Queen Mother' the generic term for the mother of a queen?* If so, I do not think it would right to 'hog' this page for one specific person.

no. Indeed Princess Diana was so illinformed on British constitutional offices that she thought as mother of a king, she would be King Mother (don't laugh!!! That niave sod actually thought that!!!) STÓD/ÉÍRE

(my Pocket Oxford Dictionary says: "queen mother n. dowager who is mother of the sovereign.")--branko


'Queen mother' is the mother of a Queen, although the 'Queen Mother' (with caps) is a specific person, I think??

'Queen Mother' means the mother of a reigning queen, as opposed to the mother of a queen consort. So there may be another British one in the future, even ignoring other countries.

Neither of these is correct. The Queen Mother is the mother of any reigning monarch, and is only used if she has held the title of Queen herself at one time. The Queen Mother who has just died will go down in history as Queen Elizabeth, consort of King George VI. Deb

I moved Queen Noor to the non-British list. If she truly is called "Queen Mother" in Jordan she'd be another exception to the general definition of being a Queen (she was) who is mother of a king or queen (she isn't: her husband was succeeded by HM King Abdullah II, a son by his first wife, not by Noor). -- Someone else 19:06 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

Because Jordan like other states follow different rules on inheritance of the throne, and also have multiple-divorced monarchs, it may be that a decision was made to give her the title as she was step-mother to the new king. I don't know if step-mothers are normally included, but in this case she is, perhaps as a special honour, given that she almost qualified, being a dowager queen and step-mother of the monarch. STÓD/ÉÍRE 19:50 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

Hussein was careful in two respects: only to have one wife at a time, and to retitle ex-wives formerly titled as "Queens" as "Princesses". So there was only one Queen of Jordan at a time... Now that you've confirmed she's QM, I'll add a mention to Nur's listing about her being another exception. -- Someone else 19:57 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

re the change someone made to the reference to Diana's imbecilic claim. It was not merely "incorrect". It was an illogical and ludicrous comment that showed Diana, God bless her, really hadn't a notion about British constitutional law. It is merely incorrect to think you are George Bush. But is more than merely incorrect to think your title would be King Mother, it shows a monumental ignorance of even the basics of constitutional law that was incredible in someone who was the ex-wife of the first in line to the throne and mother of the second and the third. This woman could have had the Prime Minister at the end of the telephone if she wanted. She had aides who knew the constitutional system inside and out. Whomever she wanted to talk to would have dropped everything if she had called. In the circumstances to be so monumentally ignorant about the basics of royal titles is astonishing. Trying to censor her ignorance by labelling it merely 'incorrect' is unambiguously POV. Calling herself 'Princess Diana' when no such title existed is perhaps incorrect. Thinking that as of right she should have been an HRH when in reality her HRH came purely by virtue of her marriage and lapsed once she was no longer married to a HRH, can perhaps be called 'incorrect'. But thinking you are going to be something called a 'King Mother' is a lot more than merely 'incorrect' and the language was carefully chosen to explain how incorrect it was. A less polite person might have called it imbecillic. FearÉIREANN 02:29, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining this. If believing in the title 'King Mother' were a common error, I could see why it belongs on this page. As you explain it isn't, it isn't needed here. If you want to talk about Diana's ignorance, I'm sure you can find an approprite page for it. Matthew Woodcraft
Queen Mother is considered an honourary title in some kingdoms and it was sometimes given to stepmothers of kings. For example, Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić was known as the queen mother (bs. kraljica majka) during her stepson's reign. Queen Noor can be considered queen mother. Surtsicna (talk) 22:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] lowercase

I believe this page ought to be named in lowercase for consistency with the queen consort article; both discuss the positions in general terms with specific examples, not any individual holder of the title. Psmith 15:17, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

queen consort is descriptive and not used as a specific title. Queen Mother is a title and used as a title. For QM to be lowercased one would be required to lowercase President of the United States, President of Ireland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, etc as they too are discussed in general terms with specific examples, not any individual holder of the title. Wikipedia policy, correctly, is not to do that. Queen Mother by implication must also be uppercased. FearÉIREANN 18:58, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Had Diana, Princess of Wales divorced after having becoming Queen what would her style have been then and would she have been granted a unique right and accorded the title of HM The Queen Mother? The reason I ask is because she would have served as Queen Consort for a time and would also have been the mother of the reigning King. I'm assuming her post marital style would have been Diana, Queen of England or Diana, Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but she would have also held other styles such as Diana, Queen of Canada and Diana, Queen of Papua New Guinea or even Diana, Queen of Australia.

Though I can't produce a reference for this, I have seen stated that the title was specifically invented for Elizabeth, wife of George VI, as her daughter the present Queen has the same name.

That is incorrect. The title Queen Mother was suggested as a possible alternative by Queen Victoria's mother the Duchess of Kent. As she had not served as Queen Consort in her own right, she was not permitted to do so. However the title has been used to refer to Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

[edit] A Title?

If this is in fact a title, then it must befall automatically or be awarded. For example, Prince Charles, despite his birth, did not assume the title of Prince of Wales until his mother awarded it when he was about 9 or 10. (The investiture happened some years later.) Likewise, Princess Anne was not automatically called the Princess Royal upon the death of her great-aunt, the previous Princess Royal.

I have not read the reference to the Duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) claiming the title Queen Mother. I, too, was under the impression that the name was used for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in order to distinguish her from her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

There is, in the article, a list of Queens who, it is claimed, used the titlle Queen Mother. As none of these queens is English, then, if this is indeed the case, every one of them used a non-English variant of the name. Whatever they called themselves, it was not Queen Mother. So the titles in their original languages ought to be shown.

Were these titles in fact Queen Mother in the English sense, implying wife of a deceased reigning monarch whose child has ascended the throne (if in fact this is the correct definition)? Or is the title actually closer in meaning to "King's mother" or "Reigning Queen's mother"? (I make the distinction here because the wife of a King is titled "Queen" but the husband of a reigning Queen is not titled "King". eg Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg (Victoria's husband) and Prince Philip of Greece (Elizabeth II's husband). In this case both were princes in their own right.)

If the "title" Queen Mother exists in England, then what I want to know is this- who, if anybody, before the mother of the present queen, actually used the title? If the title exists, then there were three claimants to it, within the 20th century. Queen Alexandra upon the death of her husband Edward VII and the succession of George V, Queen Mary upon the death of her husband George V and accession of her son Edward VIII and subsequent accession of George VI and Queen Elizabeth upon the death of her husband George VI and accession of her daughter Elizabeth II. The fly in the ointment here is that Queen Mary was alive at the time that her son George VI died. Had she been the Queen Mother (which by present definition, she was) then Queen Elizabeth could not be the Queen Mother.

My understanding of this situation is that Queen Mary was generally referred to, in the reign of her sons, as Queen Mary. Formally, she was the Dowager Queen. Elizabeth (Queen Mother) would also have been a Dowager Queen. This is not an hereditary title and there is no reason why there cannot be any number of dowager queens simultaneously. However, it was necessary to distinguish between Queen Mary, the Dowager Queen; Queen Elizabeth, the Dowager Queen and Queen Elizabeth. So Queen Elizabeth (wife of the late George VI) was called the Queen Mother. The title was probably subject to a Royal Decree like the decrees which made Charles the Prince of Wales and Anne the Princess Royal.

This article reads, to me, like unsubstantiated extension of a single fact- that the Mother of the present Queen of England was known as the Queen Mother. If any other part of this article is factual, then the things that need citing are:-

  1. the decree, statement or news report of such a statement that made Queen Elizabeth II's mother the Queen Mother.
  2. evidence that the title existed or was in common parlance in England before that date (which is the implication of this article).
  3. evidence as to whether the title is simply honorary like "Dowager Queen" or whether it must be awarded.
  4. evidence that the Duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) actually claimed the title "Queen Mother". My suspicion is that she did not claim the title of Queen Mother but did claim the title of "Dowager Queen". This was a title which did indeed exist and would make sense of the un-cited information on this page.
  5. evidence as to what all the listed so-called "Queen Mothers" from non-English-speaking countries were actually called and precisely what the term implied in the language of the people who called them by that name.

NOTE: I have never read of this title applied to any English Queen except Elizabeth, Queen Consort of George VI upon the accession of her daughter.

--Amandajm 05:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Amandajm. This article needs substantiated. Bobopaedia 22:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

--Is this a joke?-- "There is no masculine equivalent to the term. If Albert, Prince Consort had survived Queen Victoria, instead of the other way around, he would not have been called "Prince Father" or a like title with respect to his reigning son Edward VII; he could not, of course, have been called 'Queen Mother'." I suppose the last sentence (after the semicolon) is a joke; and not in good taste, in my opinion. So I'm going to delete these words. Th.

Queen mother is a rank that can also be a title. I don't see official decrees for queens dowager because that is implied through a queen being widowed. Similarly, a queen mother is a queen dowager who is the mother of the reigning monarch, regardless of whether she uses an official title or not. Charles 00:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1577

The article mentions 1577 but there is no reference given for this date. If 1577 was the date of the original usage where was it used? 76.105.150.19 06:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC) Queen Brandissima

[edit] Capitalisation of Queen

"Queen" is used to refer to a specific Queen, whereas "queen" is used for the general concept † DBD 13:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

There can be the Queen, but not a Queen. That case would be a queen. Also when speaking of a position that is not in the form of a formal, proper title there is no capitalization. Saying the Queen dowager of is stylistically awful and doesn't follow the conventions for written English. One could say, for instance, the Queen of the United Kingdom, but the King of the United Kingdom's queen. Charles 15:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DQM

A queen mother whose sovereignly child predeceases them is referred to as dowager queen mother because they are a queen mother whose position has lapsed due to another's death – like a dowager queen or a dowager peeress, whose previous titles lapse due to their husband's death (although not always directly) † DBD 13:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

When a titled lady becomes a dowager she remains so until her death or remarriage. A queen mother is already a queen dowager. "Dowager queen mother" literally means a dowager queen dowager who was/is the sovereign's mother? Does a queen dowager whose queen consort daughter-in-law becomes widowed become a dowager queen dowager? No... Charles 15:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overwhelming historical evidence shows that the proper plural is "Queen mothers".

I have thoroughly scoured Google and Google Books results, and it is now clear that "Queen Mothers" is far more likely to be correct than "Queens Mother" - 53,000+ hits for "Queen Mothers" compared to 724 hits for "Queens Mother" (some of which referred to mothers who live in the NY borough of Queens). See:

  • The Literary Digest History of the World War, p. 289, "Two Queen mothers on whom President Wilson called while in Europe in 1918..."
  • Henry B. Wheatley, Peter Cunningham, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, p. 271, "They passed that building which of old Queen Mothers were designed to hold"
  • Elna K. Solvang, A Woman's Place is in the House, p. 85, "Information about the deeds of the kings — and possibly the deeds of the queen mothers — is said to be found in the Annals of the Kings".
  • Jenny Wormald, Mary, Queen of Scots: Politics, Passion and a Kingdom Lost, p. 50, "it is therefore something of an irony that she had to wait for twelve years, until 1554, and stage a successful coup, before obtaining the place which earlier queen mothers had immediately enjoyed".
  • Leo G. Perdue, Proverbs, p. 269, "Queen mothers, while possessing great influence because they bore and reared the male heir apparent to the throne, rarely ever came to sit on the thrones..."
  • Sydney Wayne Jackman, A Stranger in the Hague: The Letters of Queen Sophie of the Netherlands, p. 155, "Queen Mothers seem to be wicked everywhere, but this one is now in a most dreadful situation".
  • Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, African Women: A Modern History, p. 37, "The important role played by queen mothers or their equivalents, whether in a matrilineal or patrilineal society, ..."
  • Elisabeth Meier Tetlow, Women, Crime, and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society, p. 151, "Although there were no defined political roles for queen mothers... Queen mothers had treasurers and stewards of their possessions.
  • Carol Ann Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, Women's Bible Commentary, p. 120, "For Judah's twenty kings, eleven queen mothers are named".
  • Deborah Levine Gera, Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus de Mulieribus, p. 14, "This last group of women are not only the widows of kings, and (in some instances) independent rulers, but queen mothers, parents of the reigning or future king".
  • Barbara N. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and Their States, p. 179, "Numerous less well known queen mothers served as regents."
  • Imbert de Saint-Amand, The Court of the Empress Josephine, p. 304, "Then there are the apartments of the queen mothers... In the bedroom of the queen mothers an altar was raised where the Vicar of Christ said mass".
  • Heinz Duchhardt, Richard A. Jackson, David J. Sturdy, European Monarchy: Its Evolution and Practice from Roman Antiquity to Modern Times, p. 5, "...the queens or queen-mothers in France were far more than just the consorts or mothers of kings".

Per the above, Wikipedia convention dictates that we must follow the most widely accepted construction, which I am affecting now. Cheers! bd2412 T 07:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm sorry, I thought I could sit by and watch this, but I can't – queens mother, queens consort, queens regnant, queens dowager are all the proper plural forms!
  1. In each case, the second word is an adjective describing the former, a noun – like polished cabinets or cabinets polished
  2. Common usage is simply not enough to establish correct/proper usage – ain't and gonna are both extremely common, but they aren't proper! Who is used for any case of the word, whereas who is the nominative form, whom otherwise – again, common usage explicitly contrary to proper usage.
  3. Is it really permissible/required for the 'paedia to follow common usage over correct or proper usage? Because if so, I'll have to challenge that policy, because quite honestly it blows – we're supposed to be a source of information – people trust Wikipaedia, and we shouldn't be teaching them improper grammar! † DBD 11:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)