She was also the last Empress of India from until the British Raj was dissolved on 15 August The couple and their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret , embodied traditional ideas of family and public service. Elizabeth then became queen consort. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. After the war, her husband's health deteriorated, and she was widowed at the age of Her elder daughter, aged 25, became the new monarch. After the death of Queen Mary in , Elizabeth was viewed as the matriarch of the British royal family.
In her later years, she was a consistently popular member of the family, even at times when other royals were suffering from low levels of public approval. The location of Elizabeth's birth remains uncertain, but reputedly she was born either in her parents' Westminster home at Belgrave Mansions , Grosvenor Gardens , or in a horse-drawn ambulance on the way to a hospital.
She was educated at home by a governess until the age of eight, and was fond of field sports, ponies and dogs. Her best subjects were literature and scripture. On Elizabeth's fourteenth birthday, Britain declared war on Germany. Four of her brothers served in the army. Her elder brother Fergus , an officer in the Black Watch Regiment , was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in Another brother, Michael , was reported missing in action on 28 April He remained in a prisoner of war camp for the rest of the war.
Glamis was turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, which Elizabeth helped to run. She was particularly instrumental in organising the rescue of the castle's contents during a serious fire on 16 September Hung in diamonds, drawn in a coach and four, and quartered in the best house in the land. He initially proposed to Elizabeth in , but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to".
She became convinced that Elizabeth was "the one girl who could make Bertie happy", but refused to interfere. The couple married on 26 April , at Westminster Abbey. Unexpectedly, [ 26 ] Elizabeth laid her bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on her way into the abbey, [ 27 ] in memory of her brother Fergus. They then went to Scotland, where she caught "unromantic" whooping cough. Despite this, the tour went ahead, and they visited Aden , Kenya , Uganda , and Sudan, but Egypt was avoided because of political tensions.
