House of Lords

Wednesday 3 April 2002

My Lords, it is with great sadness that I convey from these Benches the support of the Lords Spiritual for the Motion. I hope too that my few words may reflect some of the feelings of the wider Church.

As we reflect on, and pay tribute to, a life well-lived, our hearts go out to those who will miss her most: The Queen and all the Royal Family. Their bereavement is the greatest and the hardest to bear. Yet, so greatly has she been loved that we all recognise a sense of real loss.

That great love, and the respect she inspired across the generations, arose first from her marvellous example of service and duty. Yet to this she added her own very special grace and charm, so that every family, here in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth, found a place for her in their hearts.

We appreciated the way she took up, uncomplaining, the unexpected burden of service to her country. And we remember a Queen Mother who carried this burden with unfailing courage, supported by the great joy, which she took in her family. Let us not forget that she also faced with courage the private sadness of the loss of her husband, and recently her younger daughter.

One source of this courage was her deep and straightforward faith in almighty God. Her devotion to the truths of the Christian gospel was a rich source of strength. It helped to sustain her throughout her long life lived with grace, with elegance, and most of all with a deep and enduring joy.

I remember her saying with a laugh that I was her eighth Archbishop. She had known Randall Davidson who was appointed Dean of Windsor by Queen Victoria! I may have been one of eight Archbishops, but the Queen Mother was unique. On another occasion, I recall mentioning the name of John Henry Newman who was vicar of St Mary's, Oxford, as long ago as the 1820's. Her reply stunned me: 'Oh yes!' she replied with enthusiasm: 'My grandfather was profoundly influenced by him'. Suddenly we had travelled back the best part of a hundred and eighty years!

We cannot do better than pause today to say a heartfelt "thank you" for a long life and one nurtured by a direct and deep faith in Almighty God, a life which has expressed so well those wonderful words of St Paul:

"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things."

We thank God for all she meant to us and all she gave us. In this Easter season, we thank Him too that she has now passed into the fullness of life, which God has promised, by the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.