Queen dowager

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A queen dowager or dowager queen (compare: princess dowager or dowager princess) is a title or status generally held by the widow of a king. In the case of the widow of an emperor, the title of empress dowager is used. Its full meaning is clear from the two words from which it is composed: queen indicates someone who served as queen consort (i.e. wife of a king), while dowager indicates a woman who continues to hold the title from her deceased husband (a queen who reigns in her own right is a queen regnant). A queen mother is a former queen consort, often a dowager queen, who is the mother of the reigning monarch.

Currently (2019) there are five queens dowager:

Princess Latifah
of Morocco is dowager princess since her husband's death and is now also a princess mother since her son is now king.

Status

A queen dowager has an important royal position (whether or not she is the mother of the reigning sovereign) but does not normally have any rights to succeed a king as monarch on his death unless she happens to be next in line to the throne (one possibility would be if the king and queen were also cousins and childless, the king had no other siblings, and she in her other position as his cousin was also his

heiress presumptive
).

A queen dowager continues to enjoy the title,

Garter King of Arms
's proclamation in the United Kingdom of the styles and titles of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at her funeral on 9 April 2002 illustrates her dual status as a queen dowager and a queen mother:

Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory life unto His Divine Mercy the late Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent Princess Elizabeth, Queen Dowager and Queen Mother, Lady of the Most Noble

Defender of the Faith, Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter
, whom may God preserve and bless with long life, health and honour and all worldly happiness.

Distinction from queen mother

A

Victoria
.

Not every mother of a reigning monarch is the queen mother or a queen dowager. For example, the mother of

Augusta of Saxe-Gotha and Srinagarindra of Thailand were not styled queen dowager because their respective husbands, Frederick, Prince of Wales and Mahidol Adulyadej, Prince of Songkla, were never kings. Instead, Augusta held the title of "Dowager Princess of Wales" (a precedent was Henry VII of England's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, titled "My Lady the King's Mother"); Srinagarindra meanwhile received the designation "Princess Mother".[citation needed
]

As there is only one monarch, there can only be one queen mother. It is possible for there to be a queen mother and one or more queens dowager alive at any one time. This situation occurred in the Commonwealth realms in the period between the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952 and the death of her paternal grandmother on 24 March 1953, when, for slightly over a year, there were three queens alive:

  • Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch (queen regnant).
  • Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, the widow of the deceased King George VI and the mother of the reigning queen. Queen Elizabeth, the former queen consort, specifically adopted the appellation queen mother to distinguish herself from her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. She reportedly loathed being referred to as a dowager queen, and felt there would be confusion if she were called simply by her name, as her two immediate predecessors, Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra, had been.
  • Queen Mary, the widow of King George V, the mother of the former king Edward VIII (the then Duke of Windsor) and of the late King George VI. Queen Mary had been the queen mother from the death of her husband in 1936 until the accession of her granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1952. She continued to be titled and styled Her Majesty Queen Mary.

British queens dowager

See also: British queen mothers

There were several former queens consort of England, Scotland, and later the United Kingdom, who were never queen mothers. The following queens were dowagers between the given dates, whether queen mothers or not:

Of England:

Of England and Ireland

  • Henry VIII
    until her death on 16 July 1557, but since her marriage had been annulled on 12 July 1540, she was not considered a queen dowager.
  • Lady Elizabeth.[2] Remarried to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley most likely in mid-spring of 1547.[3]

Of Scotland

Of England, Ireland and Scotland

Of the United Kingdom:

If the current queen consort, Queen Camilla, outlives the incumbent king, King Charles III, she will become a queen dowager, while King Charles’s son and daughter in law become the new king and queen consort respectively. She would not be known as a queen mother, as she is not the biological parent of Prince William.

Other

Note that in some of the countries mentioned below it is unusual to indicate a former queen-consort as a dowager.

East Asia

China

Japan

Korea

Europe

Bavaria

Castile

Croatia

  • Michael Krešimir II of Croatia
    .

Denmark

Greece

León

Portugal

Prussia

Romania

Saxony

Sweden

In Sweden, there has also been another title for a dowager queen, called Riksänkedrottning, which means Queen Dowager of the Realm. This title was used in the 16th and 17th centuries. The last time the title queen dowager was used was in 1913.

Two Sicilies

Württemberg

Pacific

Hawaii

South America

Brazil

Southeast Asia

Malaysia

Myanmar

Thailand

West Asia

Jordan

Fiction

In the novel series The Princess Diaries, the character Princess Clarisse Marie Grimaldi Renaldo is the princess dowager of the principality of Genovia. In the films, where Genovia is portrayed as a kingdom, Clarisse is portrayed as a dowager queen.

In the fantasy novel series

High Sparrow", the new queen consort, Margaery Tyrell
, mocks Cersei's loss of power by asking her to clarify whether she should be addressed as queen mother or dowager queen.

In the 2015 Indian movie Baahubali-The Beginning and its sequel Baahubali-the Conclusion, actress Ramya Krishnan portrays the character "Rajamatha Shivagami Devi". In most Indian languages, the word 'rajamata' means 'Queen-Mother'.

In the video game Long Live the Queen, after the queen regnant of the kingdom of Nova is assassinated, her widower is referred to as the king-dowager.

In the 2023 Netflix series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, actress Michelle Fairley portrays Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, King George's mother.

Notes

  1. ^ "Belgium's queen mother flies home for health tests". AP. September 26, 2018.
  2. ^ Catherine Parr continued to use the title Queen Dowager even after her remarriage to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, the younger brother of the late Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife.
  3. ^ Linda Porter. Katherine, the queen, Macmillan 2011.
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