The details of HM Queen Elizabeth’s final days and hours have been revealed in a book, which includes her personal aide’s memo of the moment of her death at Balmoral Castle in Scotland in September 2022.
The book, by royal author Robert Hardman, extracted in the Daily Mail, includes a memo written by her secretary Sir Edward Young, which now sits in the Royal Archive. The note was written after Young was informed by the Queen’s doctor of her death. It reads:
“Dougie [Glass, GP] in at 3.25. Very peaceful. In her sleep. Slipped away. Old age. Death has to be registered in Scotland. Agree 3.10pm. She wouldn’t have been aware of anything. No pain.”
The book also reveals that King Charles was on his way back to Balmoral from his nearby Scottish home when he received the news of his mother’s death. It was during a phone call to him in his car that he was addressed as “Your Majesty” for the first time, aged 73.
Hardman writes, too, that the monarch who was spending the summer at her Scottish home, was planning to travel to London to preside over the change of political leader, following Boris Johnson’s resignation and his replacement by Liz Truss.
Instead, due to doctors’ intervention, the Queen stayed in Scotland where both politicians travelled to attend her. They visited on Tuesday September 6th, for Johnson to take his official resignation, and for Truss to accept the Queen’s commission to lead Parliament (in what would prove to be a very short-lived tenure). These meetings turned out to be the last of the Queen’s 70-year reign, with her death announced 48 hours later.