Lady Betty

Before there was Kate, before there was Lady Diana, there was Lady Betty.

You all know her better as the Queen Mother.

Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon was the youngest daughter of one of the oldest of Scottish nobility, the fourteenth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. As a dark-eyed, self-assured debutante, she caught the eye of Prince Albert -Bertie --the second son of King George V.

There's much evidence Elizabeth's heart may have been engaged elsewhere, to a young man named James Stuart. Stuart later claimed that he and Elizabeth were in love, but that Queen Mary --Bertie's mother-- had intervened and friends of the Royals offered Stuart a lucrative position in the oil business --in Texas!

The rest of the Royal family and their courtiers, realizing the depth of Bertie's devotion to Lady Elizabeth -- swung into action. Princess Mary, Bertie's sister, asked Elizabeth to be one of her bridesmaids. Queen Mary enlisted her ladies-in-waiting to sing Bertie's praises to the young Scottish aristocrat.

After several rejections, Bertie finally won Elizabeth's consent to be his bride. He sent a coded telegram to his parents, sharing the news of Elizabeth's "yes."

Prince Bertie was never meant to be King – he was the spare to the heir. But, the heir -- Edward, Prince of Wales, showed no signs of settling down. Therefore public attention upon Lady Elizabeth was relentless. From January 16, 1923, when the engagement was announced, until the wedding in late April, the newspapers were full of every kind of information and misinformation about "Lady Betty."

The bride-to-be herself -- who initially received no guidance from Buckingham Palace -- was so well-mannered and obligingly kind that she gave two interviews to reporters, before realizing this was not in her best interest. (They were the last interviews she was to give for 80 years.)

Elizabeth was never known as “Betty” to any of her family or intimates– but that didn’t stop the broadsheets from portraying her that way. They couldn’t resist shortening her name to the popular diminutive. And, the British public began a lifelong love affair with the woman who eventually became known as "the Smiling Duchess," "Our Brave Queen," and, finally, "The Queen Mum."

However, her first sobriquet was "Lady Betty."