Queen in Scotland: How regular childhood trips helped shape an inspirational woman

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Elizabeth was not born in 1926 to be a Queen but merely to be another relatively minor princess within the extensive Windsor clan.

She did, however, always have strong Scottish connections. Apart from anything else, she was a direct descendant, not of the English Tudors but of the Scottish royal house, the Stuarts.Her mother, of course, was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the ninth child of the 14th Earl and Countess of Strathmore who lived at Glamis Castle in Angus when in Scotland.It was in 1923 that the pretty aristocrat married Bertie, the Duke of York, George V’s shy, stammering second son.There was never any expectation that the young couple would inherit the British throne.That was not their, far less their daughter’s, destiny, but that of the heir presumptive, the king’s glamorous heir, the charismatic if emotionally flawed David, Prince of Wales.He was the Lady Di of the racy, roaring 20s.Bertie was not too unhappy to walk in his brilliant shadow, content to live a life of quiet domesticity with his wife and eventually their two daughters interspaced with his hardly onerous royal duties – opening a factory here, planting a tree there and standing in for his brother and father when necessary.The duke, like his father, enjoyed routine.

He did not like change. So Easter was invariably spent with George V and Queen Mary at Windsor, Christmas at Sandringham, while August and September were divided between Birkhall on the Balmoral Estate, Balmoral itself and Glamis.

In between, they stayed in their London house, 145 Piccadilly.This pattern established, laid down in her childhood, remained with Elizabeth throughout her long life.But it also meant that from her first months considerable amounts of her time was spent on this side