The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

11 July 2000 - Speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the service of celebration and thanksgiving in honour of the 100th birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

"'THE test of greatness,' William Hazlitt once said, 'is the page of history.' What is written there has been told and celebrated in this great cathedral for many centuries. It is fitting then that we celebrate here today the 100th birthday of a lady whose calling and whose life are already inscribed on history's page.

A birthday, a calling, a life.

The world of the early 20th century into which you, Ma' am, were born as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon would be largely unrecognised to the child of today. You will be grateful, I imagine, for not having to travel round the country in a Model A Ford or fly around the world courtesy of the Wright brothers. Neither will you hanker greatly after the medical or dental treatment of another age.

But the hundred years we celebrate so joyously with your approaching birthday has hardly been a century of unbroken advance. Our capacity to denigrate and destroy has sometimes threatened to lay waste the good and the lifegiving. Evil dictatorships and terrible bloodshed have been too much a part of your lifetime.

It was perhaps during the period between the two world wars that your calling began to take shape. First with marriage. The Archbishop of York in his wedding address in Westminster Abbey spoke words that made a deep impression on you and your husband and so many who heard them.

'With all our hearts,' he said, 'we wish that your married life may be a happy one. But we cannot resolve that it shall be happy. You can and will resolve that it shall be noble. The warm and generous heart of this people takes you today into itself. Will you not, in response, take that heart, with all its joys and sorrows, into your own?'

And this, Your Majesty, you surely did, with nobility and grace. You entered into the hearts of the British people, and your own heart has been open to them ever since.

It was a bond that gained special strength from two sources: abdication and the war. You stood with your husband as he was confronted so unexpectedly with the demands of Kingship. It was, in your own words 'an intolerable honour'. That he became a greatly loved Sovereign was due in no small measure to your encouragement, fierce loyalty and constant presence.

Together you stood with your people during the long nightmare of the Second World War. When Buckingham Palace was badly damaged you famously declared, 'I'm so glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.' Well, may I say that as a child of both the East End and the Blitz, allow me to say your own face grew still more loved as a result.

And throughout those years we were also aware of the inner strength, of the real though wholly unpretentious faith in God that you and the King shared. A Christian faith which has continued to sustain you through the mingled joy and sadness which are the lot of all families, royal and humble alike. Surely it is no accident that in families across this land you are known simply as our 'Queen Mum'.

Faith has also suffused your strong sense of duty and your unfailing commitment to service. Both are reflected in a generosity of spirit and deep concern for others. I well recall the very first time I escorted you into a state banquet at Buckingham Palace. As we entered I realised with some alarm that I hadn't looked at the seating plan. I had no idea where to escort you! Incredibly, almost as though you had read my thoughts, you said: 'As a concession to my age, my chair is the one with arms.'

For that, as for much else - including the recent loan of your wine glass - may I say thank you Ma'am!

A birthday, a calling, a life. And a long life, still lived to the full and still shared with so many. Now, honouring the experience of age is not something our society finds easy. Instead the icons we tend to venerate focus on the cult of youth and physical prowess. As a result the gifts of age are often set aside and disregarded: the wisdom and discernment of long perspectives and strong foundations; the humour and tolerance, patience and courage matured down the years.

But these are gifts we are proud to honour here today. Not by your presence alone, but also by the presence of several others who are celebrating their 100th birthday this year. To them also we say 'thank you'.

But we do not simply honour age; we may also profit from it. The French philosopher Joubert once said, 'Life is a country that the old have seen and lived in. Those who have to travel through it can only learn the way from them.'

So, at a time when there is such a premium placed on the young and the new, it is glorious indeed to be celebrating the birthday of someone who can help us travel that country called 'Life'. And someone, indeed, who so fully continues to inhabit it. For we cherish in you, Ma'am, a continuing openness and responsiveness to people not just of all backgrounds but of all ages.

For none of us - young or old - has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom. And St Paul makes that very clear in the reading we heard from his Letter to the Philippians - it is for each of us to seek out and to think on whatsoever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report.

Today, Ma'am, our celebration of your birthday, your calling and your life help us as a nation to do just that. We give thanks for your public service and devotion to duty, sustained by faith in God's love for us all - and summed up so beautifully in those words of Robert Browning:

Thank you and God bless you, our dear Queen Mother. Amen."