PREVIOUSLY unpublished letters by the late Queen Mother offer a new insight into the turmoil of the abdication, her humour and her incisive views on the dreariness and luxury of royal life.

In the trove of correspondence, released since her death last year, she reaffirms her common touch; for example, accepting that the royals might be regarded as ??luxurious creatures?? by the public during the years of the great depression. She also reveals a touching and uncanny assessment of her daughter Margaret??s character, referring to the infant as having an ??iron will?? only days after her birth.

The letters, which have been recently opened to the public by Lambeth Palace, were written to the Queen Mother??s confidant Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 to 1942.

In the letters the Queen Mother confides her private feelings in the difficult days that followed the abdication of her brother-in-law King Edward VIII in December 1936. Her vivid writing is in stark contrast to the bland official statements of the time.

In one letter she writes of Edward, who left Britain for France before marrying the American divorc??e Wallis Simpson: ??We were so very unhappy over the loss of a dear brother ?? because one can only feel that exile from this country is death indeed. We were miserable, as you know, over his change of heart and character during the last few years and it is alarming how little in touch he was with ordinary human feeling ?? Alas! He had lost the common touch.??

In another frank exchange she writes: ??When we spoke at Birkhall only three months ago, how little did I think such drama and unhappiness was in store for our dear country. Thank you from my heart for your unfailing sympathy and good advice.??

At the height of the abdication crisis the Queen Mother became unwell with ??flu?? and retreated to her bedroom at 145 Piccadilly in London. A month later in a letter to Lang she made a frank admission of how the abdication had hit her: ??I feel now rather as if I was coming to after a heavy blow on the head. I think the shock of those terrible days in December was literally stunning and a merciful numbness overcame me at the time. The return to life is rather unpleasant.??

The archbishop??s personal notes, stored with the letters from the Queen Mother, demonstrate his own antipathy to Edward whom he describes as being ruined by his ??disastrous liking for vulgar society??.

It was to Lang that the new Queen Elizabeth wrote on December 12, 1936, the day after the abdication: ??I sign myself for the first time and with great affection Elizabeth R.??

Six years earlier she had written to the archbishop asking him to christen Princess Margaret, her second daughter. Lang had already conducted the baptism of Princess Elizabeth, her first daughter (the present Queen), in 1926.

The letter, written shortly after Margaret??s birth, shows remarkable foresight about the princess??s character: ??Daughter number two is really very nice and I??m glad to say she has got large blue eyes and a will of iron which is all the equipment a lady needs! As long as she can disguise her will and use her eyes then all will be well.??

At this time Elizabeth was Duchess of York and the informality of the correspondence suggests there was never any thought about a future on the throne as Queen Consort.

In contrast to the volumes written about her serious attention to duty, the Queen Mother??s letters demonstrate that she too could get bored by the endless rounds of official events. In the early summer of 1935 an excited letter proclaimed: ??Hooray, hooray I am free on Thursday 18 and I??m delighted to accept your invitation to luncheon. I shall look forward to that day as an oasis in a desert of dreary functions.??

The Queen Mother??s letters also show she was deeply troubled by the plight of British people affected by high unemployment and poverty during the depression of the 1930s. ??I hope that it will be a happier (year) for many people in this land, and their happiness will certainly make us happier. One cannot help worrying over the misery and hardship suffered by so many good people, and their courage in facing hardship is the thing I admire most in them. It is a great example to all of us luxurious-minded creatures ?? not you, but us ?? I mean.??

She did not underestimate the importance of her position. In a letter on the eve of her coronation she says: ??I write to thank you gratefully for the book on the coronation that you have so kindly sent me . . . I realise even more the significance of what we have undertaken.??

Kenneth Rose, the historian and a friend of the Queen Mother, said the letters on the abdication were ??rare and disobliged?? confidences for a Queen Consort to share even with her most intimate spiritual adviser.

He said it did not go unnoticed by Edward: ??In his memoirs, Edward VIII took his revenge by describing Lang at George V??s deathbed at Sandringham as ??a noiseless spectre in black gaiters??.??

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