Queen dowager


A queen dowager or dowager queen 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, while dowager indicates a woman who continues to hold the title from her deceased husband. A queen mother is a former queen consort, often a dowager queen, who is the mother of the reigning monarch.
there are three queens dowager: Kesang Choden of Bhutan, Norodom Monineath of Cambodia, and Lisa Najeeb Halaby (Noor Al'Hussein) of Jordan.

Status

A queen dowager has an important royal position 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.
A queen dowager continues to enjoy the title, style, and precedence of a queen, but is no longer referred to as the queen. A new reigning king would have a wife who would be the new queen consort and therefore the queen; a queen regnant would also be called the queen. Many former queens consort do not formally use the word "dowager" as part of their titles. There may be more than one queen dowager at any given time. The 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:

Distinction from queen mother

A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the current monarch. Not every queen mother is a queen dowager, such as Queen Paola of Belgium, who became the queen mother of her son Philippe after her husband Albert II abdicated the throne but retained the title of king. Not all queens dowager are the queen mother; they may have a relation other than mother to the reigning monarch, such as aunt or grandmother. For example, Mary, Queen of Scots, was queen dowager of France after the death of her husband Francis II, to whom she bore no children. Similarly, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was queen dowager after her husband William IV was succeeded by his niece Victoria.
Not every mother of a reigning monarch is the queen mother or a queen dowager. For example, the mother of [Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria of United Kingdom], Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was neither a queen dowager nor the queen mother because her husband, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, had never been king. Similarly, whilst being the mothers of monarchs, both 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" ; Srinagarindra meanwhile received the designation "Princess Mother".
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.
  • 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 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

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
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

Denmark

Greece

León

Portugal

Prussia

Romania

Saxony

Spain

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 A Song of Ice and Fire, and later the HBO series Game of Thrones, the character Cersei Lannister became the queen mother to King Joffrey Baratheon after her husband Robert Baratheon was killed in a hunting accident, although she managed to strong-arm the position of regent as well, and was thus known as the "queen regent". In the episode "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.