Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Dies Peacefully in her Sleep
Episcopal News Service. March 30, 2002 [2002-082]
(ACNS) Buckingham Palace announced earlier today that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon at her home in Windsor. The Queen Mother was 101. Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey had paid tribute to her at the service of thanksgiving in London's St. Paul's Cathedral in 2000, on her 100th birthday.
Carey said the Queen Mother had entered into the hearts of the British people. "And your own heart has been open to them ever since," he told the Queen Mother. "It was a bond that gained special strength from two sources: abdication and war," he said.
"You stood with your husband as he was confronted so unexpectedly with the demands of kingship. It was, in your own words,'an intolerable honour.'"
That George VI became a greatly loved sovereign was due in no small measure to the Queen Mother's "encouragement, fierce loyalty and constant presence," said Carey. "Together you stood with your people during the long nightmare of the Second World War," he said.
"When Buckingham Palace was badly damaged you famously declared, 'I'm so glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.' As a child of both the East End and the Blitz, allow me to say your own face grew still more loved as a result," said Carey.
"And throughout those years we were also aware of the inner strength, of the real though wholly unpretentious faith in God that you and the King shared. A faith which has continued to sustain you through the mingled joy and sadness, which are the lot of all families, royal and humble alike.
"Surely, it is no accident that in families across the land, you are known simply as the Queen Mum."
Photographs to accompany this article available from http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/.
The Queen Mother is shown here with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. George L. Carey and Canon John L. Peterson, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, at Cumberland Lodge Windsor Great Park, during the 1995 Primates Meeting. The Queen Mum greeted every person present personally.