The Hon. Margaret Rhodes is The Queen’s first cousin, and longtime friend. Born just a few months apart from Her Majesty, Mrs Rhodes probably knows the monarch better than anybody else, and they still remain best of friends to this day.
Margaret is the youngest daughter of Sidney Buller-Fullerton-Elphinstone, 16th Lord Elphinstone – The Queen Mother’s brother-in-law. She was a constant playmate and companion of the young Princess Elizabeth.
The friendship continued, and in 1947, she was one of eight bridesmaids at Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Prince Philip.
Flash forward to the current day, Mrs Rhodes invites The Queen to her house most Sundays for a cup of tea after church. In actual fact, the 91-year-old lives in the parklands of Windsor Castle, a home Her Majesty gifted to her three decades ago.
Many people are familiar with Margaret Rhodes following her many appearances on documentaries about The Queen’s life. It is often joked that it wouldn’t be a programme about The Queen without a contribution from Margaret Rhodes!
When asked in 2013 whether she was excited for the arrival of the royal baby (Prince George), she famously said: “not terribly – everybody has babies so I won’t get terribly excited about it”.
Margaret Rhodes has also been very vocal on the matter of The Queen abdicating in the future. She has reaffirmed her view that Her Majesty will never abdicate many times, most recently in a documentary about The Queen turning 90.
She said: “She has made it perfectly clear that through age there is no possible danger of her abdicating in favour of her son. I think she feels that the vows she made on her Coronation were ones that she wants to fulfil to the nth degree. And I think during those things she vowed to act as Queen for as long as she lived”.
“I think that should something such as Alzheimers or a stroke or something intervenes, which god forbid, that would obviously open up a wholly lot of different circumstances, perhaps making Prince Charles Regent or something. But those are exceptional circumstances and so far she’s shown no sign of wilting in the job and I think her total dedication is something we should all be very grateful for.”
It is rare for somebody to give such a great insight into Her Majesty’s life. Who knows, maybe what comes out of Margaret Rhodes’ mouth is exactly what The Queen herself would say, being as she never conducts any interviews.
Margaret’s mother was Lady Mary Bowes-Lyon and SHE was the Queen Mother’s sister. How could Margaret’s father be the Queen Mother since his name was not Bowes-Lyon????
It is really a journalistic primogeniture not to mention the blood relation. They may have changed the laws of succession but not the rules of sexism.
The article says that Margaret’s father was the Queen Mother’s brother-in-law. To not mention Margaret’s mother then, I thought, was rather strange since she is the blood relative.