Appearance by Queen lavishly ends earlier (8)
I believe the answer is:
formerly
'earlier' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'appearance by queen lavishly ends' is the wordplay.
'appearance' becomes 'form' (form is a kind of appearance**).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'queen' becomes 'er' (abbreviation for Elizabeth Regina).
'ends' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'lavishly' with its middle removed is 'ly'.
'form'+'er'+'ly'='FORMERLY'
(Other definitions for formerly that I've seen before include "At one time" , "Hitherto" , "In the past" , "Previously, before this time" .)