She loves her son, Prince Daniel much, however, she really wants her son to get married and have children so she can be a grandmother, so she tries encouraging her son to look for a potential wife instead of exploring. Queen Uberta is a character of The Swan Princess and Derek's mother. Queen Arianna is a supporting character in Disney's 2010 animated feature film, Tangled. Queen Elizabeth II (right) with her mother Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (centre), and her sister Princess Margaret while celebrating the Queen Mother's 93rd birthday

She loves her son, Prince Daniel much, however, she really wants her son to get married and have children so she can be a grandmother, so she tries encouraging her son to look for a potential wife instead of exploring. She was especially close to the Prince of Wales – until his love of Mrs Simpson took him from his family and then from his country. Here are housed the private and official papers of monarchs and their families reaching back to the mid-18th century – a vital and fascinating source of information on the history of the kingdom. Her mind, she wrote, worked on many thoughts.

She had a consuming interest in other people, a deep love of God and a total commitment to Britain and the Commonwealth. I only hope that my book can illustrate some of those ideals in the life of a remarkable woman of whom George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said, quoting from the Old Testament, “Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.” 'Queen Elizabeth: The Queen Mother’ by William Shawcross (Macmillan, RRP £25) is available from Telegraph Books for £23 plus £1.25 p+p. In 1920, the Duke of York, King George V’s shy, stammering second son fell in love with Elizabeth and the letters between the young couple as, over two years, he determinedly reached out to her and she resisted life in the golden cage of royalty, are especially poignant. Robin Janvrin’s 2003 letter was the start of magical enquiries. The excellent Archivist, Jane Anderson, presented me with a large box of the letters which the young Elizabeth had written to her governess, friend, confidante and co-conspirator in many japes, Beryl Poignand, during the First World War.

When I asked her what was the matter, she replied “The King has died”. History . But of course she managed and for another 50 years she devoted herself to her family, more than 300 regiments, charities and other organisations which are integral to the role of what has been called “the welfare monarchy”.

Elizabeth came to adulthood through the 1914-18 War, which began on her 14th birthday. She grew up principally in the countryside and was always happiest there; her interest in her prize sheep and cattle, and her corgis, was enduring, and she adored horse racing. The Prince had chosen well; his grandmother’s tea-time conversations with Anderson, a delightful and trustworthy Scot, went well. “It was just a terrible tragedy, it really was.

The war brought tragedy to the Strathmores – in September 1915, her brother Fergus was killed at the Battle of Loos, and in 1917 another brother, Michael, was feared dead. At the suggestion of Prince Charles, I was also given access to taped conversations between the Queen Mother and Sir Eric Anderson, then the Head Master of Eton, in the mid 1990s. On 7 July 1959, Isaiah Berlin described a dinner party with Maria Callas and the Queen Mother. She and King William made an agreement to unify widowed their land by the motion of marriage between their children, Derek and Odette. To the astonishment of the government and many commentators, hundreds of thousands of people stood for hours in the biting cold to pass by the coffin of a woman who had helped define the country for so many decades. Can We Finally Tell the Truth About Britain's Vile 'Queen Mother'?

People sensed that both Queens embodied the Shakespearian royal ideal of “Christian service and true chivalry”. After a dance in 1918, she wrote to Beryl lamenting that “such a lot of these boys are going out quite soon – in fact nearly everybody I know.

In 2002, I presented four films for the BBC, Queen and Country, and wrote a book celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Before they got down to business at Royal Lodge, her home in Windsor Great Park, the Queen Mother urged the Head Master to do justice to the huge Sunday tea spread on the table as if he were a schoolboy out for the afternoon. In Tangled: Before Ever After, Arianna tells Rapunzel that, at a young age, she was very much like her daughter in that she felt lost in the world and longed to find her calling.

Best of all, she expressed all of these passions, and many more, in a stream of remarkably vivid and beautifully written letters to her family and friends. Working with me was Sheila de Bellaigue, the former head of the Archives. “We prayed with all our hearts that Peace would come soon – real peace, not a Nazi peace.” The Queen’s grief on the death of the King in 1952 was profound and it took time for her to adjust to her new role as Queen Mother (a name she initially disliked). In the years since then, the work of trying to recreate on paper the life of this remarkable woman has been a joy. It was a dreadful blow to his brother [her husband] because, you see, they were great friends… [Edward VIII] must have been bemused with love, I suppose. We all loved the Prince of Wales and we thought he was going to be a wonderful King. The Queen Mother is a minor character in Barbie of Swan Lake.She is the mother of Prince Daniel.She is voiced by Gina Stockdale. Her contribution was invaluable: I could never have written the book without her. It was February 1952 and King George VI, husband of the woman about whom I have been writing, had passed away.

I have long been aware of the emotional power of monarchy. I was honoured and thrilled.