I don’t get it. Queen Elizabeth is THE Queen of England, correct? Who was her father, and was her father a King of England? (If so, King who?) And, if not, wouldn’t that make the Queen Mother THE Queen of England until her death…thus making Queen Elizabeth into Princess Elizabeth until the Queen Mother dies??? But, Elizabeth is Queen…
This week’s next week is next week’s last week! (Daffy Duck)
Boy, am I confused…
Please set me straight!
“Brave, Brave Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot…”
The Queen Mum (QM) was titled “Queen”, but only when she was married to the ruling king. QM’s daughter was the next in line to the throne when QM’s husband died, so she became Queen Elizabeth II, and QM got “demoted” to “Queen Mother”.
It’s been explained better, but that’s the gist of it.
sigh
No, see the Queen Mother was the Queen Consort. Rather than Queen Regnant. (I think that’s spelled correctly).
Meaning, she was not Queen in her own right-her husband was King George VI.
Queen Mother is simply a title given to the Queen Consort of the previous monarch. Others to have held the title in the past would be Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary. If the next monarch is NOT the son or daughter of the former Consort, she would be called Queen Dowager. The last Queen Dowager was Queen Adelaide, (nee of Saxe-Meingen), wife of William IV. William and Adelaide had no children* so, instead, the next one in line was their niece, Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who became Queen Victoria.
*Poor Adelaide did have children in the early years of her marriage-a Princess Elizabeth, but the poor girl died only a week or so after her birth. She also gave birth to twin girls who were stillborn.
The late Queen Mother became the Queen Mother when Elizabeth II became Queen. Before that she was the Queen Consort to George VI. Queen Consort means she was the wife of the King, but not a reigning monarch. Elizabeth II is George VI and the late Queen Mother’s daughter.
We thrashed out this issue thoroughly in this thread: The Queen Mum is Dead - Is Charles Already King?.
Try skimming through it and see if it answers your questions.
And she ain’t the ‘Queen Of England’ any more than she is the ‘Queen of Yorkshire’, ‘Queen of Bristol’ or ‘Queen of the High Street’.
You won’t find her introduced anywhere at anytime as ‘Queen Of England’, at least not by anyone who doesn’t want taken aside and given a 30 minutes lecture on royal titles.
But we’ve been through this dozens of times before…
No, the widow of the King is always the “Queen Dowager”; the title is not tied to whether the King is succeeded by his own issue.
“Queen Mother” is a more informal title, which the late Queen Mother preferred, especially since when Queen Elizabeth II succeeded, her grandmother, George V’s widow, Queen Mary, the Queen Dowager, was still alive - it would have been confusing to have two people commonly referred to as the “Queen Dowager.” Although the late Queen Mother preferred the more informal title, she was also “Queen Dowager.”
From Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th ed., Vol. 8, “Constitutional Law”:
[footnotes omitted]
Which is why the list of the Queen Mother’s titles read out by the Garter King of Arms at her funeral included ‘Queen Dowager’ and ‘Queen Mother’.
Perhaps this link will help:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Rulers/windsor.html
All the monarchs lined up nice and neat 
In order to become a King or Queen, one must be within the blood line of the Windsor family. The Queen Mother was not, she essentially “married into the family” by marrying King George VI.
Right, she was also Queen Dowager, but she was rarely called that. The same with Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra.