During the First World War, Bowes Lyon helped at Glamis Castle (owned by her uncle) which became a convalescence home for soldiers.
Her brother Charles Bowes Lyon was killed in the war on 23 October 1914, inspiring her poem "Battlefield" which was later published in Bright Feather Fading.
Her "Collected Poems" contains an introduction by C. Day-Lewis, who noted the influences of Emily Dickinson, Hopkins and Christina Rossetti.
[5] During the Second World War, Bowes Lyon moved to the East End of London, where she used the Tilbury Docks unofficial air raid shelter and assisted with nursing the injured.
She returned to her home in Kensington and continued to write poetry despite the thromboangiitis obliterans beginning to affect her hands.