Queen Elizabeth- Canada Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

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King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the State Opening of Parliament, 1948 . Credit: © Government of Canada. Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada/Library and Archives Canada/1971-271 NPC.
LAC

In 1923, the tomb of the Unknown Warrior became the site of a new royal wedding tradition when Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, laid her bridal bouquet on the memorial as she entered Westminster Abbey to marry Prince Albert, Duke of York, the future King George VI. This act honoured her elder brother, Capt. Fergus Bowes-Lyon who died in the Battle of Loos and was buried in an unknown grave. Since 1923, subsequent royal brides, including Catherine Middleton in 2011, have placed their bouquets on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior the day after their weddings.

The prominence of the Tomb of the Unknown Solider in Great Britain inspired similar memorials in other Commonwealth realms. In May 2000, the remains of an unidentified Canadian soldier the First World War were repatriated from France and were buried with in a tomb in front of the National War Memorial in Ottawa. In 2011, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge began their visit to Canada by attending a wreath laying at the Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Their first walkabout as a married couple consisted of meeting with veterans after the ceremony.

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Queen Mother (HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother)

Her Majesty (HM) Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, consort of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.

Her Majesty (HM) Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, consort of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms (born 4 August 1900 in London, United Kingdom; died 30 March 2002 in Windsor, United Kingdom). In 1939, Queen Elizabeth became the first queen consort to visit Canada with her reigning husband. Her determination to remain in London during the Blitz made her an inspirational figure during the Second World War. Her tours of Canada spanned a 50-year period from 1939 to 1989. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2000.

Birth

The Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was born 4 August 1900. Her parents were Lord and Lady Glamis: Claude Bowes-Lyon and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. Elizabeth’s birthplace was probably her parents’ London home but she was registered near her family’s country estate, St. Paul’s Walden Bury in Hertfordshire, which was listed as her birthplace in subsequent census records. Elizabeth was the ninth of ten children. She had both English and Scottish royal ancestry: Cecilia was a descendant of the first Tudor King of England, Henry VII, and Claude’s ancestors included the first Stewart King of Scotland, Robert II.

Early Life and Education

When Elizabeth was four, her paternal grandfather died and her father became the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, inheriting Glamis Castle in Scotland. The family divided their time between St. Paul’s Walden Bury, Glamis, and Florence, Italy, where Elizabeth’s maternal grandmother resided. Elizabeth’s childhood was happy and she enjoyed a close relationship with her parents and siblings. Although all six of Elizabeth’s brothers attended Eton, she was educated by governesses for most of her childhood, briefly attending two successive London day schools. She passed an Oxford Local Examination with distinction at the age of 13 but the outbreak of the First World War disrupted her secondary education.

First World War

Both Glamis and St. Paul’s Walden Bury became convalescent homes for the wounded after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. At 15, Elizabeth was too young to become a nurse but she assisted in the homes, running errands, organizing activities and writing letters for convalescing soldiers. Elizabeth’s four surviving elder brothers (Patrick, John, Fergus and Michael) all served in the armed forces. Elizabeth was concerned for their safety and grieved along with the rest of her family when Fergus died at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Michael was declared missing in 1917. When news reached the Bowes-Lyon family that he had been taken prisoner and was alive, Elizabeth wrote to a former governess that she was “Mad with joy!!” The family was reunited when the war ended in 1918

A Suitable Royal Bride

The circumstances of the First World War changed attitudes toward royal marriage, making Elizabeth a suitable bride for one the King’s sons. Since the ascension of the House of Hanover to the British throne in 1714, members of Britain’s royal family traditionally married members of Europe’s royal houses exclusively, a custom enforced by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. George V changed this convention in 1917, the same year he changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor, encouraging his children to marry into the British aristocracy. The fall of the German, Austrian and Russian ruling houses during the First World War hastened this transition because there fewer eligible European princes and princesses.

Courtship and Engagement

In July 1920, Elizabeth was formally presented to George V and Queen Mary. That same month, the royal couple’s second son, the Duke of York (Prince Albert, the future George VI) invited Elizabeth to dance at a Royal Air Force ball. Elizabeth made a strong impression on Albert and he visited Glamis in August, enjoying the warmth and comparative informality of the Bowes-Lyon household. Albert courted Elizabeth for more than two years and proposed three times before they became engaged in January 1923. Elizabeth was reluctant to marry Albert because she feared losing her privacy by becoming a member of the royal family. Despite her misgivings, the marriage was happy and she immediately became popular with both the royal family and the public.

Wedding

Elizabeth and Albert were married at Westminster Abbey in London on 26 April 1923. Upon her marriage, Elizabeth was styled Her Royal Highness (HRH) The Duchess of York. Canada’s House of Commons passed a formal motion of congratulations supported by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and Opposition Leader Arthur Meighen. There was tremendous popular interest in the royal wedding and the newly created British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) requested permission to broadcast the ceremony over the radio. Authorization was denied by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who feared that listeners in the pubs would not remove their hats for “God Save The King.” Elizabeth introduced a new royal wedding tradition that has endured to the present day when she placed her bouquet on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in memory of her brother Fergus

The Queen Mother's wedding, 1923

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvglWKl6b1A

Duchess of York

The newly married royal couple lived at Frogmore, near Windsor Castle, until renovations on their new home at White Lodge, Richmond, were complete. Albert and Elizabeth also acquired a London house at 145 Piccadilly Street. Elizabeth supported her husband in an extensive program of public engagements. Her ability to put at ease people from all walks of life contributed to her success with the public. Albert and Elizabeth visited Northern Ireland in 1924, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda in 1924–25, and Australia and New Zealand in 1927. These tours were difficult for Albert, who had developed a stammer in childhood. Elizabeth supported her husband’s work with Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, which gave him the confidence to make speeches in public.

Motherhood

On 21 April 1926, Elizabeth gave birth to the royal couple’s first child, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, the future Queen Elizabeth II, at the Bowes-Lyon family’s London home at 17 Bruton Street. A second child, Princess Margaret Rose, was born at Glamis on 21 August 1930. Although Albert and Elizabeth were sometimes separated from their children because of their overseas tours, they were loving parents who enjoyed a close relationship with their daughters. The public admired their family life and compared it favourably with the extended bachelorhood of Albert’s elder brother, the future Edward VIII.

Abdication Crisis

Elizabeth’s father-in-law, George V, died on 20 January 1936 and his eldest son succeeded him as Edward VIII. The new King reigned for less than a year, abdicating on 11 December 1936 to marry a twice-divorced American, Wallis Simpson. Albert succeeded his brother, assuming the regnal name George VI to symbolize continuity with his father’s reign after the disruption caused by the abdication crisis. Elizabeth became queen consort and the family moved into Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. As his father’s second son, George VI never expected to be King and Elizabeth supported him in his demanding new role. She was crowned as consort at her husband’s coronation in Westminster Abbey on 12 May 1937. George VI appointed his wife honorary Colonel-in-Chief of the Toronto Scottish Regiment that same year.

Tour of Canada 1939

At the coronation, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King presented the royal couple with an official invitation to visit Canada. In May and June of 1939, George VI and Elizabeth became the first reigning King and Queen to tour Canada. Their coast-to-coast journey by train was the most successful Canadian royal tour in history and saw the first royal walkabout. The first royal walkabout took place in Ottawa when the King and Queen spontaneously joined a group of First World War veterans after the unveiling of the National War Memorial. The walkabout has remained a key feature of royal tours to the present day.

Elizabeth was crucial to the success of the Canadian tour. Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir (John Buchan) stated that she had “perfect genius for the right kind of publicity.” Elizabeth’s letters to her daughters in England reveal how Canadians from all backgrounds demonstrated their enthusiasm. Elizabeth wrote on 23 May, “The French people in Quebec and Ottawa were wonderfully loyal; & [in] Montreal there must have been 2000000 people, all very enthusiastic.” At the time, French Canadians viewed the Crown as a protector of their rights and George VI and Elizabeth both made speeches in French during the tour. Elizabeth also encountered Scottish Canadians at every stage of the itinerary who viewed her as one of them. Looking back on the tour, Elizabeth concluded, “Canada made us,” a sentiment echoed by her great-grandson, Prince William, in Calgary in 2011.
During the tour, George VI and Elizabeth also visited American President Franklin Roosevelt at his Hyde Park on Hudson residence in upstate New York.

King George VI visited Canada and the USA in 1939

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyKf3b0Vt8w

The royal tour was instrumental in cementing a continued Anglo-Canadian alliance immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The 1931 Statute of Westminster had created legislative equality between the United Kingdom and the self-governing Dominions of the former British Empire, giving Canada control over policy decisions. Elizabeth’s role in the successful 1939 tour therefore helped strengthen the bond between the two countries before the war.

The Second World War

During the Second World War, George VI and Elizabeth reached the height of their popularity because they remained in London during the 1940–41 Blitz. When Elizabeth received advice that her daughters should be evacuated to Canada, she declared, “The children could not go without me, I could not possibly leave the King, and the King would never go.” In September 1940, Buckingham Palace was bombed while the royal couple were in residence and they narrowly avoided injury. Elizabeth famously stated, “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.”
Elizabeth spent the war visiting munitions factories, schools and regiments in addition to bombed areas of London. The royal family observed wartime restrictions including food rationing and heat and water usage limits. Although Elizabeth remained in the United Kingdom throughout the war, she encouraged the Allied war effort around the world. Elizabeth also promoted recognition of women’s contributions to the war effort, stating in a 1943 radio broadcast to the “Women of the Empire,” “…You will see that your work, whatever it may be is just as valuable, just as much ‘war-work’ as that which is done by the bravest soldier, sailor or airman who actually meets the enemy in battle.”
When the Allies achieved victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, hundreds of thousands of people gathered outside Buckingham Palace cheering “We Want the King” and “We Want the Queen” until the royal family appeared on the balcony. Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, “We could not have had a better King and Queen in Britain’s most perilous hour.”

The Commonwealth

Following the Second World War, the modern Commonwealth replaced the former British Empire. George VI and Elizabeth planned an extensive program of overseas tours. In 1947, they visited South Africa with their daughters and were well-received despite republican sentiment among the Afrikaner population. That same year, Elizabeth’s involvement in the Canadian forces increased when she became Honorary Colonel-in-Chief of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment).George VI and Elizabeth were unable to undertake a planned return visit to Canada in 1951 and a tour of East Africa, Australia and New Zealand in 1952 because of the King’s declining health. Instead, Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip represented the King and Queen for overseas engagements in the early 1950s.

Ascension of Queen Elizabeth II

George VI died in his sleep from deep-vein thrombosis on 6 February 1952 after years of ill health from lung cancer and arteriosclerosis. Elizabeth’s elder daughter succeeded to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II while visiting Kenya and returned immediately to the United Kingdom. Around 300,000 people lined the streets of London to witness the funeral. At 51, Elizabeth was a widow and she would outlive her husband by 50 years. In a message thanking people from around the world for their condolences, Elizabeth stated, “My only wish is now that I may be allowed to continue the work we sought to do together.” In contrast to previous widowed queens consort, who reduced their schedule of public engagements, Elizabeth resumed a full program after a period of mourning. Elizabeth disliked the traditional title of “Dowager Queen” and instead became known as “Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.” Elizabeth moved into Clarence House with Margaret when the new Queen and her husband and children moved into Buckingham Palace.

Subsequent Visits to Canada

As Queen Mother, Elizabeth visited Canada 14 times and advised other members of the royal family regarding their Canadian tours. When Margaret visited in 1958, Elizabeth wrote, “I have a feeling that Canada gives one a boost – even with very hard work – do you agree? They are so nice, & so loving and the Mounties are so beautiful & so romantic. It all helps.” Elizabeth’s first solo visit to Canada took place in 1954 when she opened the Bytown Bridges over the mouth of the Rideau River in Ottawa. During the late 1950s, there was speculation that Elizabeth might be appointed Governor General, although this was refuted by Buckingham Palace in 1957. For her 1962 tour, Elizabeth crossed the Atlantic in a Trans-Canada commercial plane during a regularly scheduled flight.

Elizabeth was one of the members of the royal family who visited Canada for the nation’s centennial in 1967, touring the Atlantic provinces and receiving an honorary degree from Dalhousie University. In 1977, she became Colonel-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces Medical Services. In 1989, she visited Canada for the last time, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1939 tour in Toronto, Ottawa and London, Ontario, just weeks before her 89th birthday. She remained closely engaged with her Canadian patronages and military regiments for the rest of her life, serving as Patron of Women’s College Hospital in Toronto and the Ontario Jockey Club. In 2000, Elizabeth was appointed to the Order of Canada at the age of 100.

Grandmother and Great-Grandmother

According to Prince Charles, “She was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have.” Elizabeth enjoyed a close relationship with her six grandchildren and the nine great-grandchildren born during her lifetime. During the extensive Commonwealth tours undertaken by her elder daughter in the 1950s, Elizabeth cared for her two eldest grandchildren, Charles and Anne. Elizabeth developed an especially warm relationship with Charles and was one of his most trusted advisors as an adult.
As she grew older, Elizabeth developed a warm relationship with her growing number of great-grandchildren. William recalled after her death, “She loved to hear about all my friends and all they got up to, and relate it to her own youth. And she loved to hear about how much trouble I got into at school.” When William began university at St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2001, his 101-year-old great-grandmother saw him off, declaring “Any good parties, invite me down!” William later recalled, “I knew full well that if I invited her down, she would dance me under the table.”

Death

Elizabeth died in her sleep at Royal Lodge, Windsor on 30 March 2002 at the age of 101. At the time, she was the longest-lived member of the royal family. Over 200,000 people paid their respects in person as she lay in state at Westminster Hall, London. On the day of the funeral, 9 April, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson issued a proclamation calling on Canadians to honour her memory that day. Elizabeth was laid to rest in St. George’s chapel, Windsor, alongside her husband, George VI, and younger daughter, Margaret.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother

by Arthur Bousfield

Queen Elizabeth, Consort of King George VI, is best remembered as “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother”, the title she bore for fifty years as the King’s widow. Queen Consort by marriage, Queen Elizabeth was an outstanding personality in her own right. She not only lived until almost 102, the greatest age ever attained by a Queen Consort of the Royal House, but was also the perfect helpmeet and support of her husband. She provided her own form of leadership, a charism universally recognised as unique, in the years in which she shared the Throne with the King. At the time of the King and Queen’s state visit to France in 1938, Adolf Hitler described Queen Elizabeth as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”.
The marriage of the King and Queen was a well-known love match. They had a happy life of nearly three decades together. Queen Elizabeth provided the King with the extra strength that gave him the self-confidence to embrace the destiny awaiting him. It was the Queen who persuaded him to make a final attempt to overcome his speech impediment, so limiting in any royal personage but especially in a monarch. She directed him to the Australian therapist Lionel Logue, who proved successful in helping him where others had not.
Though not of royal birth, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, as Queen Elizabeth was before her marriage, belonged to an ancient noble family that had played a distinguished role in the history of Scotland. Among her ancestors were Kings of Scotland and Ireland. She was descended from Red Hugh O’Neill, the last King of Ulster. Some of Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish ancestors remained loyal to the Stuart Royal Family after the deposition of King James II. Her family gave their names to Canadian places such as Strathmore, Alberta and Bentinck township in Ontario.
“Canada made us!”, King Geroge VI and Queen Elizabeth both said on many occasions about their great 1939 tour of Canada. The tour was the first major undertaking of their reign. Making it a success schooled them in the practice of monarchy. The Queen’s role in the tour was particularly important. In Ottawa, she laid the cornerstone of the Supreme Court Building and, at St Catharines, Ontario, opened the Queen Elizabeth Highway, Canada’s first super highway, named in her honour. Though the functions Queen Elizabeth carried out alone were few, Canadians one and all, French-speaking and English-speaking, westerners and easterners, were captivated by her charm, her majesty, her naturalness and simplicity, her genuine interest and concern for them.
Canadians’ outpouring of loyalty and affection in turn engaged Queen Elizabeth’s feelings. “When I first came here with the King – a few months before the outbreak of war”, she told them time and again in later years, “I did fall in love with Canada, and my affection has grown with each succeeding visit”. The relationship of monarchs and people, revitalised by the tour, the first by reigning monarchs of Canada, carried over into the war. “I saw the Queen when she was in Canada”, a young Canadian soldier remarked; “I said if there is ever a war, I’m going to fight for that little lady”.
Queen Elizabeth’s first appointment in the Canadian Army dated from her Coronation year, 1937, when the King made his wife Colonel-in-Chief of The Toronto Scottish Regiment. On the outbreak of World War II Queen Elizabeth made a radio broadcast in November, 1939 to the women of the Empire. About the same time she broadcast to France entirely in French. In 1940 Her Majesty opened the Beaver Club for Canadian service personnel in London, an establishment that was to be frequented by tens of thousands.
Throughout the war the Queen, almost always wearing her large maple leaf brooch from the ’39 tour, visited and maintained close personal touch with Canadian wounded, Red Cross and service personnel. At the height of the Blitz she and the King pondered the suggestion of His Majesty’s Canadian Government that the young Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, be evacuated to Canada for safety. In the end they thought it best for morale to keep the whole Royal Family together, even if it were in the war danger zone. “The Princesses”, Queen Elizabeth said, in words that became famous, “will not go without me. I won’t leave the King, and he will never go”. Before the Normandy landings, Queen Elizabeth, the King and their daughter and heir, Princess Elizabeth, visited Canadian troops preparing to assault Hitler’s Fortress Europe. In 1947 following the war, Her Majesty received her second appointment in the Canadian Army – Colonel-in-Chief of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada.
The King’s death occured just six years after the war ended. A grief-stricken Queen Elizabeth thanked the Commonwealth for its sympathy. “My only wish”, she wrote, “is now that I may be allowed to continue the work we sought to do together”. It was a signal to all that she did not intend to retire into widowed seclusion. At the same time she declared that she was to be known as “Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother”. Sometime later, on a solo tour in Canada, a journalist applied the affectionate and lasting term “Queen Mum” to Her Majesty.
Canada received a large share of Queen Elizabeth’s public work as Queen Mother. So popular was Her Majesty among Canadians that rumours circulated that she was to take up the post of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief. By 1957 the rumours to that effect were so strong that the Palace had to issue a denial. In 1954, on her first return to Canada, Queen Elizabeth opened the new Bytown Bridges spanning the mouth of the Rideau River in Ottawa, visited Hull and re-designated the canal road Colonel By Drive. In 1955 she accepted the position of Grand President of the renowned Victorian Order of Nurses, and presided at its annual meeting in 1962 at Government House.
For her 1962 Canadian tour Her Majesty made aviation history by choosing a Trans-Canada Airlines commercial aircraft on a routine flight for crossing the Atlantic. On this tour she attended her second Queen’s Plate and presented the purse for the first time herself. Her 1965 tour was devoted to Toronto to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her regiment, the Toronto Scottish. She presented them with new colours and took the salute as they marched past in front of University College. On a stopover the following year in Vancouver, Her Majesty laid the cornerstone of what was to become the Royal British Columbia Museum.
For Centennial Year, Queen Elizabeth toured the four Atlantic provinces with HMY Britannia as her floating residence. She became the first member of the Royal Family to receive an LLD degree from Dalhousie University. Two presentations to her two regiments of Queen’s Colours, based on the new National Flag, were highlights of a tour in 1974. Three years later she became Colonel-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces Medical Services. In 1979 Her Majesty attended the Gathering of the Clans in Nova Scotia, the first held outside Scotland, and was present for the Dominion Day celebrations in Queen’s Park, Toronto. In 1981 she celebrated the bicentenary of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, where she reviewed the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, a unit descended from the Loyalist Butler’s Rangers.
Four years later Queen Elizabeth presented the Queen’s Banner to the Canadian Forces Medical Services in Toronto, opened the Aberdeen Angus World Forum in Edmonton and visited Saskatchewan. Driving in a landau in Regina, she said to the Lieutenant-Governor, “There’s something wrong. These horses can’t get into a proper gait. They can’t gallop, they can’t canter, they can’t trot, they can’t walk, and, unless something is done about it, they’ll all go and have a sleep.” “Signal to the lead car”, Her Majesty instructed His Honour, “and have them step it up a bit”. This was done and the horses got into the right gait. Queen Elizabeth’s 1987 visit to Quebec was an important one as it tested the waters for that of her daughter Queen Elizabeth II, planned for the following year. After the Black Watch regimental dinner at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, the Queen Mother “heard the rock band from a high school prom in another ballroom. She decided to have a look and, accompanied by her kilted officers, entered the room. Recovering from the initial shock of seeing Her Majesty, the teenagers burst into cheers and asked her to join them. It was with great difficulty that her entourage was able to get Queen Elizabeth to leave the company of the young people.”
On her 1989 tour, Queen Elizabeth was just a few weeks from her eighty-ninth birthday. That year was the Golden Anniversary of the great 1939 cross country and back tour by the King and Queen. She marked the anniversary in Ottawa and Toronto, and, in London, Ontario, lit a Flame of Hope that will burn until a cure for diabetes is found. Though Queen Elizabeth spoke of a future tour, her daughter the Queen decided, because of her mother’s great age, that the 1989 one would be her last.
But Queen Elizabeth was to live thirteen more years. She had established a record in the Royal Family for the number of Queen’s Plates she attended – eight in all – and had become Patron of the Ontario Jockey Club. Her Majesty was also an Honorary Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada and Patron of Women’s College Hospital, Toronto. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2000. Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Montreal is one of several named for her. Queen Elizabeth Island in the St Lawrence River also bears her name, as does Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother M’Nidoo-M’Nissing (Island of the Spirit) Provincial Park on Manitoulin Island, created in 2000 to mark her hundredth birthday.

Queen Elizabeth died on 30 March, 2002 at the Royal Lodge, which had been such a happy home for the King, the Queen and their daughters. Her last public act was to give her approval for a new wing to Belmont House, a Toronto residence for seniors, to bear her name. Following her death, the Toronto Scottish Regiment, of which she had been Colonel-in-Chief for sixty-five years, was re-named The Toronto Scottish Regiment (Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s Own).

http://crht.ca/queen-elizabeth-the-queen-mother/

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Canada repatriated the remains of an Unknown Soldier from France in May 2000 and laid them to rest at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The idea originated as a millennium project of the Royal Canadian Legion and was coordinated through the government by Veterans Affairs Canada.

What the Unknown Soldier Represents

The Unknown Soldier was originally intended to represent all war dead whose remains had not been identified, a common problem along static First World War battlefields frequently churned by artillery and subsumed in mud. Since 1920, a single Unknown Soldier in London’s Westminster Abbey had represented the unidentified war dead of Canada and other Commonwealth states. The original ceremony, presided over by King George V, had included many of the British Empire’s Victoria Cross winners, and a group of 100 women, each of whom had lost their husband and all their sons during the war. France and the United States followed Great Britain’s example in 1921, as did numerous other countries in subsequent years. These tombs and memorials gradually assumed broader significance, becoming sites of memory and mourning for all war dead, and for civil ceremonies of broadly based remembrance instead of simple military commemoration.

Canada’s Unknown Soldier

In 1993, Australia marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the First World War by repatriating from France the remains of its own Unknown Soldier, the first Commonwealth country to have done so since 1920. He was buried in the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memory in Canberra.
Canada followed the Australian example in 2000 at the suggestion of the Royal Canadian Legion and other groups. A single set of remains was selected from among Canada’s 6,846 unknown soldiers of the First World War for return to Canada and re-interment at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The Unknown Soldier ultimately came from a cemetery near Vimy Ridge and was flown home to lie in state in the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block of Parliament from 25 May to 28 May 2000, where tens of thousands filed past to pay their respects.
The Unknown Soldier was buried on the afternoon of 28 May 2000 in a nationally televised ceremony. The site has become an important focus of commemoration, especially in the national Remembrance Day service held at the National War Memorial on 11 November.
http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/after-the-war/remembrance/the-unknown-soldier/

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