Why the Queen Mother and her father gave different answers about her birthplace

Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, who later became the Queen Consort and eventually the Queen Mother, was born in an aristocratic family and lived most of her life in the spotlight. That's why it comes as a surprise that one of the basic details about her life, which is her place of birth, remains unconfirmed to this date.

Lady Elizabeth was born on August 4, 1900, as the youngest daughter and the ninth of ten children of Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of Scotland), and his wife, Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck, a descendant of British Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck. While the palace was planning her eightieth birthday celebrations in 1980, a Clarence House press officer was asked to confirm where she was born.

When the Queen Mother was herself asked, she replied "London," the same answer she had given when obtaining a passport in the 1920s. However, the issue was that her birth certificate said she was born in Hertfordshire, one of the home counties in southern England. The certificate, registered in late September 1900, says that she had been born at their family home of St Paul's Walden Bury, near Hitchin, reports Royal Central.

It is speculated that there may have been a mistake made by her father Claude Bowes-Lyon in recording the place of her birth. Claude Bowes-Lyon was fined for not registering her birth in time, breaking the law which required a baby's arrival to be recorded within forty days. The Earl was in Scotland when his daughter was born and it was only after several weeks that he returned and obtained the certificate from the Hitchin register office. There was also the matter of pressure from the local vicar to produce a birth certificate in time for little Elizabeth's christening. It is believed that having been away at the time of her birth, Claude may have assumed that she was born at the family home as this is where she was when he arrived.

The matter still needs some explanation, as a birth must also be recorded in the area in which it takes place, which means Claude would have had to go to London to get that certificate if her daughter's claims of being born in the capital were true. Another rumour claims that the Queen Mother was actually born in a horse-drawn ambulance on the way to the hospital, in which case finding the right registration district would be guesswork.

The Queen Mother herself confused people with her answers and actions about the issue. On one hand, she named London as her birthplace on several occasions, but on the other, she unveiled a plaque in a local church near her family home which commemorated her arrival in the area. Lady Cecelia, the only person who could not be wrong about the question regarding her daughter's birth, never made any clarification about it before she passed away in 1938.