wfn.org | Episcopalians: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother dies peacefully in her sleep

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

March 30, 2002

2002-082

Episcopalians: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother 
dies peacefully in her sleep

(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.

(Photo: Anglican World/Rosenthal)

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