Elizabeth II's Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Was As Feared As She Was Loved

Queen Elizabeth II tossed back no less than four boozy drinks a day - and she picked up the habit from her mother. The Queen Mother would have her first drink early in the day, and kept going until bedtime. According to her former equerry, it wasn't unusual for her to have more than six drinks a day. She was especially a fan of red wines, and one of her favorite drinks was Dubonnet and gin. Her heavy drinking did not take a significant toll on her health, however, since she lived to the ripe old age of 101.

When the Queen Mother was an infant, Great Britain boasted an enormous empire built on institutionalized racism. This, coupled with the fact a racist worldview still heavily shaped the era, makes it not entirely surprising she privately held prejudiced views. On one occasion, she used a derogatory term to refer to the people of Africa. Even as her country fought the Third Reich, she expressed sentiments that allegedly furthered the Nazi state's anti-Semitism. She reportedly harbored "some reservations" about Jewish people.

The Queen Mother's older brother John had five children with his wife. Two of them - Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon - were born with mental disabilities. In 1941, when the nation was at war with Nazi Germany, both young women - Nerissa and Katherine - entered a mental institution. The two women spent the remainder of their lives there. Some people viewed them as a secret the royal family needed to hide. Indeed, the family erased these two sisters' existence: Burke's Peerage - the book on the who's who of British nobility - listed the sisters as being deceased, even though both were still alive. Nerissa lived until 1986, and Katherine died in 2014.

Bowes-Lyon became the queen consort because her brother-in-law abdicated the throne to marry his mistress, the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. In fact, she may have had a central part in lobbying for King Edward VIII's abdication. It's an understatement to say Bowes-Lyon didn't like Simpson - she loathed her. In her eyes, Simpson was merely "that woman." She regularly went out of her way to avoid meeting her scandalous sister-in-law. Both Simpson and her husband struggled to find their way forward after Edward VIII's abdication. Bowes-Lyon didn't want to make anything easy for them, and committed herself to icing them out of the royal way of life. If his wife couldn't become queen, Edward at least wanted her to have the honorific title "Her Royal Highness." But the idea horrified Bowes-Lyon, and she influenced her husband's refusal to extend the title to his sister-in-law.

Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, the Queen Mother's eldest grandson, in 1981. Like the rest of the world, the Queen Mother immediately warmed up to the young princess. However, their relationship took a nosedive as Diana and Charles's marriage became increasingly rocky. After a series of public revelations about their private marriage, the royal couple separated in 1992 and officially divorced four years later. The Queen Mother blamed Diana for the couple's problems and gave her the cold shoulder. She reportedly forbade others from mentioning Diana in her presence.

Bowes-Lyon's beloved husband died from lung cancer in 1952, and though she survived him by 50 years, she also struggled with cancer, albeit away from the public eye. Her first diagnosis came in 1966, which was for colon cancer. Nearly 20 years later, she received a breast cancer diagnosis. Bowes-Lyon managed to beat cancer both times, and died peacefully at the age of 101.

Bowes-Lyon was queen of a kingdom that was enduring one of its worst trials in history. During World War II, the German Luftwaffe relentlessly bombed Britain from May 1940 through September 1941. The German air force bombed industrial centers like London's East End and targeted cultural sites as well. One bomb hit Buckingham Palace while the king and queen were in residence. Though they did not sustain injuries, the royal couple could have easily perished - in fact, one palace staffer died from the explosion. The bombing proved the king and queen were valiantly in the fray along with their subjects. Bowes-Lyon has said she felt relieved that Buckingham Palace had taken a direct hit: "It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face."

As the daughter of an illustrious noble Scottish family, Bowes-Lyon caught the eye of Prince Albert (eventually King George VI) - then known as Bertie - the king's second son. But Bertie wasn't the only gentleman in pursuit of Bowes-Lyon's heart. James Stuart, the son of an earl, was also a potential suitor - that is, until Bertie's mother Queen Mary may have had him shipped off to America to make room for her son in Elizabeth's heart. With Stuart gone, Bertie made his move. He proposed to Bowes-Lyon three times between 1921 and 1923 before she accepted him. Bertie's proposal to Bowes-Lyon left some confused, since newspapers mistakenly reported that she was to marry his older brother instead.

Bowes-Lyon came into the world on the lap of luxury, having never experienced much else in life, even during wartime. So, contrary to the image of a happy, grandmotherly figure to the British people, the Queen Mother was perhaps more dismissive towards the common people than she ever let on in public. Family name and lineage were everything to her. She strongly believed a rigid social hierarchy was the key to a stable society, and allegedly once confessed, "I hate classlessness."

Born in 1900, Bowes-Lyon came of age against the backdrop and immediate aftermath of World War I. After war broke out in 1914, her family home, Glamis Castle in Scotland, turned into a convalescent space for soldiers. Glamis Castle wasn't precisely akin to Downton Abbey, especially since Elizabeth wasn't old enough to become an official nurse, like the Crawleys. But she ran errands for the wounded and rubbed shoulders with recovering soldiers.

The Queen Mother had an impressively long life. When she passed away in 2002, she did so at the age of 101. Her death affected her daughter Queen Elizabeth profoundly, especially since it happened soon after Princess Margaret's passing. Margaret died on February 9, 2002 at the comparatively young age of 71, and her mother died a few weeks later on March 30, 2002. Elizabeth had been close to both her sister and mother, so it was a difficult time for her.

Interacting with royalty is sometimes a complex affair. Among the many rules: If someone is addressing the queen several times, they should refer to her as "ma'am" after having addressed her the first time as "Your Majesty" or "Your Highness." The pronunciation of "ma'am" should sound like "ham," but some people accidentally mispronounced it as "marm." The Queen Mother reportedly hated it when people - usually commoners - did this. She went so far as to privately make fun of them for their perceived ignorance.