A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also used to describe a number of similar yet distinct monarchical concepts in non-European cultures around the world. The rank does not go to all mothers of monarchs though. A mother of a ruling monarch may only be referred to as Queen Mother if she was a Queen Consort as opposed to a Princess Consort.
The widowed mother of Queen Elizabeth II was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
Queen Hedwig Eleanor of Sweden (née Princess of Holstein-Gottorp) was twice regent of that country, once for her only son, once for a grandson
Duchess Ingeborg was regent of Norway and Sweden 1318–1319
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was concurrently the last Empress of India until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947. After her husband died, she was officially known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter Queen Elizabeth II.
Portrait by Richard Stone, 1986
Elizabeth in 1909
At a charity sale event in 1915
Portrait by Philip de László, 1925