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- OBITUARY FOR ELIZABETH BASSET
ELIZABETH BASSET claimed it came as a surprise when in 1959 she was asked by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to become a lady-in-waiting, a job for which, she also pointed out, there was no training. She said she hardly knew the Queen Mother at that time.
But her name had scarcely been drawn out of a hat. Her grandfather, the sixth Earl of Dartmouth, had been Vice-Chamberlain to the Household from 1885 to 1892, and her father served George V as Lord Great Chamberlain from 1928 until the King's death in 1936. Other family connections clearly point towards more than a nodding acquaintance with royalty. Lady Elizabeth's mother was a daughter of George V's friend the first Marquess of Lincolnshire and her elder son, Bryan Basset, married a daughter of a Sandringham neighbour, the fifth Earl of Leicester.
Born in 1908, Lady Elizabeth Legge married, in 1931 Ronald Basset, by whom she had two sons, one of whom, Peter, died tragically young. This led to her publishing, a year after her husband's death, an anthology of religious verse and prose, Love is My Meaning: an anthology of assurance (1973), dedicated both to her husband and to Peter, for which the Queen Mother contributed a foreword.
Four further anthologies followed: Each in His Prison (1978), collecting material on prison life, and with a foreword by Richard Hauser and Hephzibah Menuhin Haiser; The Bridge is Love: an anthology of hope (1981), with a foreword by Sir John Betjeman; Interpreted by Love: an anthology of praise (1994), with a foreword by Archbishop Robert Runcie; and Beyond the Blue Mountains, subtitled "Wisdom and Compassion on Living and Dying" and published last year.
Like the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Basset was educated at home. Again, like the Queen Mother, she delighted in the absurdities of life, and shared with her royal mistress a rollicking sense of fun. During one spell of waiting at Birkhall, the Queen Mother's house near Balmoral, she and Queen Elizabeth read to one another alternately a book called A Case of Bananas, written by a circuit judge, with, so Basset used to recall, "the tears pouring down our cheeks".
One of their most uproarious shared experiences occurred in Wales, after the Queen Mother had attended the re-consecration of a parish church. The sermon went on too long and the rest of the day's engagements got behind schedule so that at one point the chauffeur put his foot down so hard that Basset and the Queen Mother were propelled on to the floor of the car, where they sat side by side convulsed with laughter.
Initially Elizabeth Basset was appointed an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber, but two years after her husband's death the Queen Mother asked her to become a Woman of the Bedchamber, a post she retained until 1993, when she again reverted to the less onerous post of an Extra Woman. By that time Basset was herself 85 and was beginning to find the long standing during the Queen Mother's public engagements too tiring. As it was, for 22 years she had tied herself down to a fortnight's stint in waiting approximately every six weeks. Not that she ever resented the commitment. She used to recall that, speaking of Lady Radnor in her old age, E.F. Benson had said: "To be with her is like sitting in the sun." "And," said Lady Elizabeth, "That always made me think of Queen Elizabeth."
With others of the Queen Mother's ladies-in-waiting there can be no doubt that Elizabeth Basset forged an important and intimate relationship. Asked whether she would describe herself as a friend of the Queen Mother, Basset would cautiously reply: "She treats you as a friend. And we have enormous laughs. But at the same time you are very aware that she's the Queen Mother. The tradition is very important. You wouldn't take liberties at all." She once added: "But at the same time she's tremendously approachable and a really wonderful person to serve. I really love her."
Profound religious conviction was another shared attribute that held Lady Elizabeth Basset so willing a slave to the demands of royal etiquette. She thought the Queen Mother drew her own strength from "a very strong faith, but a very private one". She might have been speaking of herself. She went so far as to believe the Queen Mother possessed some kind of healing power. "When you are with her," she said, "not only do you feel better, you are better." Again, she could have been speaking of herself.
Greatly loved by other members of the Household, Elizabeth Basset radiated a natural friendliness and charm that transcended an obviously aristocratic upbringing. She was self-evidently a good as well as a very entertaining person and one could never quite feel sure upon whom the greater good fortune had fallen, herself or the Queen Mother.
Elizabeth Legge, courtier and anthologist: born 5 March 1908; Extra Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother 1959-81, 1993- 2000, Woman of the Bedchamber 1981-93; CVO 1976, DCVO 1989; married 1931 Ronald Basset (died 1972; one son, and one son deceased); died London 30 November 2000.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1908 - 2000 (92 years)
, d. 8 Nov 2010 (Age ~ 78 years)