She is often credited for holding up the monarchy through various crises, including the abdication of King Edward VIII and the bombing of Buckingham Palace during World War II. 

Indeed, her iron will and steely war-time resolve prompted Adolf Hitler to describe her as ‘the most dangerous woman in Europe. 

But Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, later the Queen Mother, had a more down-to-earth side too.

She loved pastel colours, horseracing and ‘drinky-poos’, a term for the lethal concoction of gin and Dubonet she preferred.

On the 23rd anniversary of the Queen Mother’s death, MailOnline takes a look at how, despite initially resisting marriage into the Royal Family, she remained as free-spirited and as sharp-tongued as she was in her youth.

Born on August 4, 1900, Elizabeth’s childhood was one of wealth, comfort and love.

She was born the ninth child and youngest daughter of Cecilia and Claude Bowes-Lyon, who could claim descent from Robert the Bruce.

During her early childhood, Elizabeth and her family divided their time spent between Glamis Castle in Scotland and her parents’ country home at St Paul’s Walden Bury in Hertfordshire.

The Queen Mother is photographed on her 101st birthday at Clarence House on August 4, 2001

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was born on August 4, 1900. Her childhood was one of wealth, comfort and love, as the youngest daughter in a large family of the Scottish aristocracy. Pictured: Young Elizabeth age two

Even as a child the Queen Mother was known to be unnervingly free-spirited. She was the ninth child and youngest daughter of Cecilia and Claude Bowes-Lyon

Lady Elizabeth was educated at home, and at the age of 10 she was fluent in French. 

The benefits of growing up in such a large Scottish aristocratic family meant that young Elizabeth never went hungry, according to Gareth Russell’s candid biography of The Queen Mother.

Her brothers would tease her about her ravenous appetite, jokingly forging entries in her diary which read: ‘Sat Jan 4th. I am putting on weight. My waist measurement today is 43 inches. Appetite good.

‘Sunday 5th. Appetite still good, after healthy breakfast went to church. Came back very hungry for lunch. Roast beef, chicken, Yorkshire pudding, Plum pudding, cheese, cake and oranges. Oh, my poor tummy. Just going to have tea. Am very hungry.’

In 1920, Elizabeth became a debutante, attending a magnificent ball in Grosvenor Square that summer where she danced with Captain James Stuart, the Earl of Moray’s handsome younger son.

‘James was an absolute heart-throb,’ recalled Elizabeth’s dresser Mabel Stringer years later. ‘They fell for each other in a big way. It was obvious when you saw them together that they were madly in love.’ 

As the recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry for his service during the Great War, Stuart was working for Prince Albert, known lovingly as Bertie, as an equerry.

After Stuart had danced with Elizabeth, Bertie leaned over and asked his equerry: ‘Who was that lovely girl you were talking to? Introduce me to her.’

In 1920, Elizabeth became a debutante. On June 2, she attended a ball in Grosvenor Square, where she met her future husband Prince Albert, known to his family as Bertie 

Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, pictured together around the time of their engagement. Albert, later King George VI, proposed three times before Elizabeth accepted 

Soon, his feelings for Elizabeth blossomed and he proposed to her in the spring of 1921. She said no because, according to her biographer John Ezard, she felt ‘afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to’. 

So, Bertie’s mother Queen Mary of Teck stepped in to get rid of any competition for Elizabeth’s affections. Unexpectedly Stuart was offered a lucrative job in the oil industry. 

In 1922, Elizabeth was chosen to be a bridesmaid to Bertie’s sister Princess Mary, who was marrying Viscount Lascelles, heir to the Earl of Harewood.

She looked so dazzling in her bridesmaid’s finery that Bertie proposed all over again. Once again, she said no – and shot off to Scotland to get away from the pressure.

According to her diary, Elizabeth accepted Bertie’s (third) proposal during a romantic walk in the woods on January 14, 1923.

On the way back from the dentist, she called on her sister-in-law Fenella, ‘told her the news and had a cocktail’.

Elizabeth enjoyed cocktails, but eventually decided that she disliked their name.

Feeling ‘cocktail’ was too harsh a word, she suggested: ‘Can’t we call them ‘drinky-poos’ instead?’

Elizabeth drank steadily but despised the word ‘cocktail’. Instead, she called them ‘drinky-poos’

She was initially hesitant to marry Prince Albert as she felt ‘afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to’. The pair pictured in front of a cheering crowd in the courtyard of a factory in Edinburgh shortly before their wedding in 1923

Her favourite ‘drinky-poo’ was gin and Dubonnet – one-part gin to two-parts Dubonnet, a fortified wine initially developed to treat malaria in early 19th-century France.

It is said that after one gin and Dubonnet, you’ll need a taxi, after two you’ll need an ambulance, and after three you’ll need a priest.

But Elizabeth was aware of the pressure she would be under marrying into the royal family.

She once confided to a friend that if she married the prince, for the rest of her life ‘privacy would have to take second place to her husband’s work for the nation.’

As the engagement announcement appeared in newspapers across the world, Elizabeth told her brother David, ‘I could hear a door clanging behind me – never to open again.’

Nevertheless, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the Duke of York in a lavish Westminster Abbey ceremonial just three months later, in April 1923.

She opted for a 1920s-inspired bridal gown, featuring a drop waist and crystal embroidered bodice.

The union marked a departure from the long-standing practice of an English royal marrying into foreign royalty.

Elizabeth leaving her home on the day of her wedding to then Prince George

Their wedding, as pictured in The Illustrated London News on April 28 1923. When their engagement was announced, Eliabeth had told her brother David: ‘I could hear a door clanging behind me – never to open again’

A tradition for future royal brides also began with Elizabeth as she laid her wedding bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in memory of her brother, Fergus.

After her marriage, Lady Elizabeth become the Duchess of York and made her first public appearance as a member of the Royal Family at the RAF pageant at Hendon.

Three years later, she gave birth to her daughter Princess Elizabeth, who was born on April 21, 1926. Their second child, Princess Margaret, followed on August 21, 1930.

When King George V died on January 1936, King Edward VIII was next in line to the throne.

However, after Edward abdicated on December 11 of the same year, his brother, Albert ascended the throne and Elizabeth became Queen, the first British-born Queen consort since Tudor times.

When Elizabeth received the news, she was bedridden with a bout of influenza that developed into pneumonia. Lying in her sickbed, Elizabeth became queen as she listened to her brother-in-law’s radio address relinquishing the throne.

Before he boarded a warship for temporary exile in France and Austria, Elizabeth sent a letter to the ex-king to tell him that she prayed: ‘God bless you from my heart. We are all overcome with misery, and can only pray that you will find happiness in your new life.’

Elizabeth was so unwell that she did not get out of bed until 12 days after the news.

The future King George VI and future Queen Elizabeth at the christening of their first daughter Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, on May 29, 1926

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with their daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose following his Coronation

She never forgave Edward for abandoning the throne, having expected a quieter life and to never become Queen.

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth and King George fell on May 12, 1937.  

As Queen Consort, Elizabeth enjoyed great popularity and was a key figure in boosting moral during the Second World War, so much so that Adolf Hitler himself called her ‘the most dangerous woman in Europe’.

Ever stubborn, she refused to leave London during the Blitz and was in Buckingham Palace when it was bombed by the German air force on September 13, 1940.

When she and her husband were notified by an aide that they should make their way from the sitting room overlooking the quadrangle into the air raid shelter as an attack was imminent, Elizabeth stopped to help George with an eyelash that was stuck in his eye.

A bomb landed ’30 yards away’ from the royal pair, sending ‘a great column of smoke and earth’ into the air.

‘We all ducked like lightning into the corridor,’ the Queen Mother wrote in a letter to her mother-in-law Queen Mary of Teck.

‘There was another tremendous explosion, and we and our two pages who were outside the door, remained for a moment or two in the corridor away from the staircase, in case of flying glass.’

Elizabeth found her visits to the bombed-out East End profoundly moving. Here she inspects the damage to a cinema destroyed by Nazi bombing

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth meet victims of the air raid after Buckingham Palace was also bombed by the German Air Force

King and Queen speak to a patient wounded in an air raid in London

Later, Winston Churchill penned: ‘Had the windows been closed instead of open, the whole of the glass would have splintered into the faces of the King and Queen, causing terrible injuries.’

Luckily, their daughters Princess Elizabeth, then 14, and Princess Margaret, then 10, remained safe at Windsor Castle during the air raid.

Despite the targeted attack and looming suspicion that ex-king Edward had supplied the Nazis with ‘inside information’, the King and Queen wasted no time and jumped in a car to visit London’s gap-toothed East End.

It is estimated that more than 12,000 metric tons of bombs were dropped on London during the Second World War and that nearly 30,000 civilians were killed by enemy action, according to the Imperial War Museum. 

‘I really felt if I was walking in a dead city,’ the Queen Mother wrote to Queen Mary. 

‘It does affect me seeing this terrible and senseless destruction – I think that I really mind it more than being bombed myself.’

Later, the King’s Private Secretary Sir Alec Hardringe convinced the Queen Mother to issue a statement to the press, demonstrating their no-nonsense courage in the face of the war.

Alongside a picture of her standing in the rubble of Buckingham Palace with her stoic husband King George, the Queen Mother simply said: ‘I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.’

Alongside a picture of her standing in the rubble of Buckingham Palace with her stoic husband King George, The Queen Mother simply said: ‘I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face’

The Queen Mother with her daughters Margaret (left) and Elizabeth (right)

Elizabeth served the country alongside her husband for 16 years until the death of the King in February 1952.

Afterwards, Elizabeth supported her daughter, the new Queen Elizabeth, taking the title Queen Mother for herself.

In her later years, she took on a more maternal role in the royal family.

But much like she did during World War Two, the Queen Mother refused to move out of Buckingham Palace even though she was no longer Queen Consort.

It is believed that Prince Phillip ended up turning the heating off in the Queen Mother’s apartments in an attempt to freeze her out of the royal property.

Eventually, she moved out of Buckingham Palace into Clarence House and shared an apartment with her youngest daughter, Princess Margaret, until she married in 1960.

The Queen Mother would later move to Royal Lodge where she would throw lavish dinner with croquet on the lawn and evening entertainment in the form of Edward Fox performing, Noël Coward at the piano, or John Betjeman reading poetry.

For Royal Ascot week, the Queen Mother moved into Windsor Castle. 

The Queen Mother peers out a window at the Royal Lodge in Windsor in 1954

The Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth attending Royal Ascot in 1982. Following the death of her husband she had no inclination to marry again

The Queen Mother and then the Prince of Wales on a walkabout outside Clarence House on her 95th birthday in 1995

The Queen Mother visits Hallsville school in Canning Town in 1990 – 50 years after her famous visits to the bomb-ravaged East End of London in the Blitz 

An astonished guest once saw rows of outfits being brought in, and copious hat boxes, as the Queen Mother hadn’t quite decided what she would actually wear.

But the Queen Mother was not as extravagant as she was made out to be.

She did not replace worn carpets and her decorator, Oliver Ford, once saw her twiddling a finger in a hole in the fabric of her chair, but she declined to replace it.

When she died, the wiring at Royal Lodge required a complete overhaul. Her response was often ‘I won’t be here for long’ and yet, she was.

The Queen Mother died at the age of 101 on March 30, 2002.

A eulogy read out by the Archbishop of Canterbury said: ‘For half a century we knew her and understood her as the Queen Mother.

‘It is a title whose resonance lies less in its official status than in expressing one of the most fundamental of all roles and relationships — that of simply being a mother, a mum, the Queen Mum.

‘For her family, that maternal strength — given across the generations to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — has been a precious gift and blessing.’