In the recent coverage of the 40th anniversary of Colonel Gaddafi’s accession to power, there was little mention of the monarchy overthrown by his coup in 1969. The tacit assumption was that the now-forgotten King Idris I had been the victim of a socialist revolution that had, at least, a large measure of popular support. Viewed through the century-long prism of his helpmate and widow Queen Fatima, however, the truth was more complex than that.

Her life was intimately bound up with the creation of modern Libya, and accordingly framed by exile. Born at the oasis of Kufra in 1911 — she never knew the exact date — Fatima al-Shifa al-Sanussi was the fifth daughter of Ahmad al-Sharif, the Caliph’s representative in North Africa and the third leader of the Sanussi.

This revivalist Islamic religious order, founded at Mecca in 1837, had come to have many adherents in Cyrenaica, the western desert region bordering Egypt, and led the resistance to first French and then Italian colonial aggrandisement there. At 18 Fatima fled on camelback the troops of Marshal Graziani who had come to massacre the Sanussi community at Kufra. The 17-day trek across 400 miles of desert sand to safety in Egypt remained one of her strongest memories. At Siwa the next year — 1931 — she was married to Idris, who had succeeded her father, his kinsman, as head of the order.

A grandson of the 1st Grand Sanussi, Idris was 20 years her senior and had already been married three times. His first wife, however, had died young, and all the children born of his marriages had died in infancy. His great hope was to have an heir, but her many miscarriages and their failure to have one was to be the great sadness of Fatima’s life. They did have a son in 1953, but he lived only a day. In every other way, however, favoured as she was with abundant tact and charm, Fatima was to prove the ideal support to Idris as he began to realise his dream of self-rule for his people.

After his support for the Allied Powers during the Second World War, Idris was recognised by them as Amir of Cyrenaica in 1949. Two years later a vote at the UN created the new state of Libya. This was comprised of three ancient and very diverse Saharan regions: Cyrenaica, which looked towards the Greek heritage of Egypt; Tripolitania, which looked towards the Roman legacy in Tunisia; and the traditionalist Fezzan in the south.

Proclaimed King in the hopes of uniting this new entity, Idris found himself ruler of one of the poorest countries in the world, one medieval in all essentials and where perhaps a dozen people lived in any kind of prosperity. He and Fatima, however, were not bedazzled by monarchy and were content to live comparatively frugally, as befitted his religious convictions. Their summer palace was a two-roomed bungalow with mud walls, while for heating they huddled around a charcoal brazier.

This contentment was soon to be severely tested. Idris placed much trust in his chief adviser, Ibrahim al-Shelhi, whose family was regarded by many as greedy upstarts. Factions developed in the royal entourage, fuelled by rumours that Shelhi hoped to persuade Idris to set aside Fatima and marry his daughter. In 1954 he was murdered by the Queen’s own 20-year-old nephew. The crisis was further exacerbated by Idris’s decision to have the young man executed.

Unbalanced as he was by events, Idris then acceded to suggestions that he take another wife in the hopes of siring an heir. With great forbearance, Fatima herself picked out two likely candidates, but these were rejected in favour of an Egyptian heiress of mature years, Aliya, whom the King married in 1955. Since she had not been divorced, however, Fatima refused to move out of the royal residence at Tobruk, and within a few months Idris — who was as devoted to her as she was to him — had returned to her side. They subsequently brought up as their own several orphaned relations, and adopted an Algerian girl, Suleima, whose father had been killed fighting the French.

Then, in the late 1950s, Libya was changed for ever by the discovery of oil. This new-found wealth suddenly made its political complexion of much interest to its neighbour Egypt. Hitherto, the pillars of Idris’s foreign policy had been close ties with Britain and the US, but throughout the 1960s a volley of criticism was directed at this by Arab nationalists, led by Pressident Nasser. A conspicuous influx of foreigners, oil-related corruption, the events of Suez and the Six-Day War, and vacillation by the ageing King all led to greater social tension.

Idris had never set much store by kingship, and politically had proved mildly progressive. Libya was the first Islamic country to give women the vote, and Fatima was a notable role model for them, neither taking the veil nor living in seclusion but appearing regularly at trade fairs, school openings and other public events.

The King did, however, hope to hand on the throne to a nephew, Hasan, and to this end in August 1969 removed himself to a spa in Turkey where he signed an instrument of abdication to take effect at the start of September. It was this that forced the hand of Colonel Gaddafi and his fellow military officers, who launched their long-planned coup the day before Hasan could take power.

Idris and Fatima were profoundly shocked by events. Those courtiers with them melted away, and they found themselves alone, with little more than their luggage, dependent on the Turkish Government to pay their hotel bill. Denounced in Tripoli as profligate tyrants, they were in fact almost penniless, and had little option but to accept Nasser’s offer of a house in Cairo. In 1971 they were tried in absentia by the new regime. Idris was sentenced to death, and Fatima to five years in prison. All their property in Libya was confiscated, and they had to live on an Egyptian pension.

The former King died in 1983, and was buried at Medina. Thereafter Fatima continued to live in Cairo, characteristically moving out of her villa when she learnt that it had been seized by Nasser from an opponent. The sale of Sanussi property in Saudi Arabia later provided her with more income and she was able to buy an apartment in Dokki, on the western banks of the Nile, before moving a decade ago to the outskirts of the capital.

A stylish woman of simple tastes, with a ready smile and a gift for putting those of all backgrounds — especially children — at their ease, Fatima never showed any bitterness at the turns of fortune in her life. She did, though, feel that the King had been let down by his people, and had resisted recent overtures of reconciliation by Gaddafi’s family. Two years ago, however, she was able to recover ownership of her house in Tripoli. Since the revolution it had been rented from the Libyan Government by the Foreign Office to serve as the British Ambassador’s residence.

Fatima al-Sanussi, Queen of Libya, 1951-69, was born in 1911. She died on October 3, 2009, aged 97 or 98