Christopher Hitchens on the Queen Mum:

The tabloid-and-tapestry view of the matter depends, as usual, on pretending that important moments in British history never actually occurred. In other words, we will be treated to innumerable photographs of her waving from the balcony of the palace, on VE day, on the Queen's last jubilee and on her own centennial. But nobody will care to reproduce the picture of her first appearance outside those famous windows, which was the occasion of the welcome given to Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich. The prime minister's capitulation to Hitler received the royal warrant, in public, in front of cheering crowds, before he had to submit himself to the inconvenience of explaining himself to parliament. The court historian John Grigg (formerly Lord Altrincham) did not exaggerate when he described this as "the most unconstitutional act by a British sovereign in the present century". Nor was the Queen a mere hand-waving accessory to her husband in this conciliation of the Nazis. Philip Ziegler, official biographer of Edward VIII and a man with his own "access" to the Queen Mother, records that she was an enthusiastic seconder of the King's long campaign first to retain Chamberlain or, in default of that, to make the even more reactionary Lord Halifax prime minister, and at any cost to keep Churchill out of office.