By September 2022, the Queen had not been seen in public for more than 40 days. The Palace line was that the 96-year-old monarch had ‘mobility issues’.
Unknown to the public, for the previous two years the Queen had been able to walk only a few steps and relied on a wheelchair.
In October 2021, she was admitted to a London hospital for tests and was then under doctors’ orders to rest for three months.
The following May, Prince Charles stood in for his mother at the State Opening of Parliament and read the Queen’s Speech on her behalf.
In July, following the triumphant Platinum Jubilee celebrations and after her old friend Lady Butter died aged 97, the Queen was reported as saying: ‘I can’t wait to go. All my friends are leaving.’
HM Queen Elizabeth II pictured with Gyles Brandreth during her visit to Vernon Park in Nottingham as part of HM Diamond jubilee tour in 2012
Tuesday, September 6, 2022 — 9am
New Prime Minister Liz Truss leaves Downing Street for Balmoral for the ceremonial ‘kissing hands’ ceremony with the Queen. It is the first time she has appointed a PM at Balmoral; Buckingham Palace is the traditional location for the ceremony.
Aides had told the Queen that the official meetings today with outgoing PM Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss would be too tiring for her, but the Queen is reported to have said: ‘It’s my job.’ Meanwhile, civil servants and advisers no longer required by the Truss administration are being told to clear their desks by 11am.
10am
At Balmoral, the Queen makes a phone call to Clive Cox, one of her racehorse trainers, to talk about her horse Love Affair’s chances in the two o’clock at Goodwood this afternoon.
Cox said later: ‘We talked about the filly, how the race might pan out, how another horse of hers was doing in my stable. She was as sharp as a tack.’
Harry and Meghan are over from California and staying at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor while they carry out charity engagements. Today, they are flying to Dusseldorf in Germany to mark the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games in the city.
A couple of days ago, the couple visited the island on the Althorp estate where Princess Diana is buried. Harry wrote: ‘I was bringing the girl of my dreams home to meet Mum.’
11.16am
Boris Johnson arrives at Balmoral for a farewell audience with the Queen. They sit in the drawing room and laugh and joke during their 40-minute meeting.
Once he has gone, and while they wait for Liz Truss, the Queen and the Press Association photographer Jane Barlow chat about the weather and how dark the skies have become. Jane said later: ‘I got a lot of smiles from her.’
September 8: Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government
12.22pm
After being delayed by fog at Aberdeen airport, Liz Truss finally arrives at Balmoral to ‘kiss hands’ with the Queen and Jane Barlow captures the historic moment.
The Queen, wearing a tartan skirt and leaning heavily on a stick, smiles broadly at the new PM. There is a dark bruise on the back of the Queen’s right hand.
Behind her is a roaring fire and a painting of Queen Victoria dressed in mourning for Prince Albert. It will be the Queen’s last ever photograph.
Liz Truss is the 15th prime minister the monarch has known. The first was Winston Churchill, whom she declared to be her favourite, despite their five- decade age difference. Tommy Lascelles, the Queen’s Private Secretary at the time, wrote: ‘I could not hear what they talked about, but it was more often than not punctuated by peals of laughter and Winston generally came out wiping his eyes.’
2pm
The Queen’s horse Love Affair comfortably wins the two o’clock at Goodwood.
Wednesday, September 7 — 9.30am
Royal engagements are proceeding normally. Prince Charles is in the garden of Dumfries House in Ayrshire, 160 miles from Balmoral, recording a congratulatory 50th birthday message for the cast of Emmerdale. He says he is ‘delighted’ to be celebrating the milestone. ‘I’m afraid I’m so old I can remember when it was called Emmerdale Farm.’
Tomorrow, the Prince is hosting a climate change conference at Dumfries House.
5pm
The Queen’s health takes a turn for the worse. Prince Charles is told the news and an interview Camilla is about to give about her book club is cancelled.
The Queen’s staff reschedule a Zoom conference call with the Privy Council, where Liz Truss was to have taken her oath as First Lord of the Treasury and the new Cabinet ministers were to be sworn in. The Palace puts out a statement: ‘After a full day yesterday, Her Majesty has this afternoon accepted doctors’ advice to rest.’
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attend the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in May 2019
Thursday, September 8 — 8am
Prince Charles flies in the Queen’s burgundy-liveried helicopter through pouring rain from Dumfries House to Balmoral; Princess Anne has been staying there for the past few days. A plane is arranged for the Queen’s other children and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, who is especially close to the Queen.
Five hundred miles away, Princes George and Louis, and Princess Charlotte, arrive for their first day at Lambrook School near Windsor, with their parents the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The children are excited to all be going to the same school for the first time.
9am
Liz Truss is in the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street, practising her announcement about her energy support plan to the House of Commons, when the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, asks to see her alone. Case tells her the Queen’s condition has worsened and that she is likely to die today.
The Prime Minister immediately asks for a selection of black dresses to be fetched from her home in Greenwich, as she has yet to move all her belongings into No 10.
10.08am
Daily Mail Editor Ted Verity is in his third-floor office, preparing for the first news conference of the day. The main story looks like being the Government’s energy support plan. Suddenly, a text message flashes on Verity’s phone from a veteran royal contact: ‘I’m told the situation north of the border is close.’
Verity is in no doubt what he’s talking about, as he had been taken aback by how frail the Queen had looked in Jane Barlow’s Balmoral photograph.
10.09am
Verity replies to the text: ‘We talking hours or days or weeks?’ His contact responds: ‘Source said “imminent”.’ There had been many such scares about the Queen’s health over the years, but this one feels different to Verity.
Seeking confirmation of the tip, he sends a message to another contact with close ties to senior royals. ‘Hearing some very worrying whispers from Balmoral this morning. Do you know anything?’
11am
Having spent time by his mother’s bedside, Prince Charles is now in the woods on his estate at nearby Birkhall, basket in hand, foraging for mushrooms. A member of his Scotland Yard personal protection team tells the Prince that he should return to Balmoral, as his mother’s condition has worsened.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were pictured taking their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, on their first visit to Lambrook School, near Ascot in Berkshire, on September 7 last year – just a day before the Queen died
11.09am
Ted Verity’s second royal contact replies. ‘Very worrying. A fall. Brace.’ The Editor calls in his senior executive team to tell them that the story they had all been dreading and anticipating their entire careers was finally unfolding. Although the paper would have to wait for a formal announcement of the Queen’s death from Buckingham Palace before publishing, it is decided to prepare two versions of the next day’s Daily Mail in parallel. The first, a normal 80-page Friday edition. The second, a 120-page historic special edition, with 83 pages of commemorative features, tributes and pictures.
The newspaper has reported on the many twists and turns of the life of the Queen ever since her birth as Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of York at her parents’ home in Mayfair on April 21, 1926.
12.25pm
In A rowdy House of Commons, Liz Truss sits down, having given her statement about the energy support plan. As the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, begins his response, the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Nadhim Zahawi, sits down next to the PM and whispers that the Palace is about to give an update on the Queen’s deteriorating health.
A note is then passed to Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner which prompts MPs to murmur in concern. Rayner revealed later that the note read: ‘The Queen is unwell and Keir needs to leave the Chamber as soon as possible to be briefed.’ ‘I read between the lines on that,’ she later recalled, ‘because you don’t get a note saying the Queen is unwell if she’s got a bit of a cough or a cold.’
Rayner is reluctant to interrupt Starmer but then she sees the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, gesticulating at her to get on with it.
The Princess Royal (pictured with Lord Provost Robert Aldridge) was present at the Queen’s bedside alongside her brother, who immediately succeeded their mother as King Charles III
12.30pm
In Windsor, Prince Harry’s mobile rings and the number comes up as ‘Unknown’. It is his father, telling him that the Queen has taken a turn for the worse.
The conversation is brief, as Prince Charles says he has other calls to make. Harry immediately texts William to ask if and when he and Kate are planning to fly up to Balmoral.
12.32pm
A ‘media advisory’ is sent from the Palace to all British newsrooms: ‘The Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral.’
When the Queen’s father, George VI, died in 1952, the news was conveyed by the code words ‘Hyde Park Corner’ to stop telephone switchboard operators finding out. The code words to be relayed on the event of the Queen’s death are ‘London Bridge is down’. The Daily Mail newsroom recognises that the medical bulletin warning the public that something is wrong with the Queen is a key part of the London Bridge operation that has been planned and updated since the 1960s. It encompasses how the news is broken, the period of official mourning and the state funeral.
12.39pm
The BBC interrupts an episode of Bargain Hunt from Peterborough with a news special on the health of the Queen. Huw Edwards, the corporation’s main news anchor for such an event, is en route to a barber’s shop in Central London to have his hair cut — but because his mobile phone was stolen from a restaurant last night, he is unaware that BBC bosses have been trying desperately to get hold of him.
Harry and Meghan started looking at flights to Scotland after he received a message from his father that the Queen’s health had taken a turn for the worse
1pm
William hasn’t responded to Harry’s text, so he and Meghan start looking at flights to Scotland. Soon after, Buckingham Palace announces that William, Andrew, Edward and Sophie are on their way to Balmoral. Huw Edwards’s son has phoned the barber’s shop so when the newsreader arrives there, he is handed a message that reads: ‘Get to work immediately.’
1.52pm
Harry and Meghan’s team tip off the Press that they will both be flying to Scotland and won’t be able to attend the WellChild Awards in London, a charity of which Harry is a patron. Having dashed to Broadcasting House, Huw Edwards is now on air, wearing a black suit and dark blue tie.
2.15pm
Prince Charles calls Harry and tells him not to bring Meghan to Balmoral. Harry wrote later that the reason his father gave was ‘nonsensical and disrespectful’ and says angrily: ‘Don’t ever speak to my wife that way.’
Harry claimed that Charles ‘stammered an apology’, saying that he didn’t want too many people around and that none of the wives were coming. Hearing that, Harry replied: ‘Then that’s all you needed to say.’
Prince Charles’s decision may have been influenced by an interview Meghan gave a week ago to a New York magazine in which she said: ‘I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking.’ Kate has decided to stay behind to break the news of ‘Gan Gan’s’ death to the children when they return home from school.
Prince William led the way off the plane (circled left) followed by Edward and Sophie (pictured centre) and finally Prince Andrew (pictured right)
Catherine, Duchess Of Cambridge, pictured driving in the grounds of Windsor Castle on the day of the Queen’s death. She stayed behind in England where her three children were having their first day at school
2.39pm
The RAF jet carrying Princes William, Andrew and Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, takes off from RAF Northolt in West London. Prince Harry has still had no reply from his brother but has managed to charter a private Cessna jet out of Luton Airport.
3.10pm
The oldest and longest-reigning monarch in British history dies peacefully in her bed. The Queen’s death certificate will later give the cause of death as ‘old age’ and her profession as ‘Her Majesty the Queen’.
Prince Charles, Camilla and the Princess Royal are by her bedside. Anne said later: ‘I was fortunate to share the last 24 hours of my dearest mother’s life.’
Dr James Glass, a local GP whose official title is the Queen’s apothecary and who has looked after her for 30 years, is also in attendance.
At the age of 73, Charles is now King. In 1994, he had said to his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby: ‘All I do as Prince of Wales is to make the most of it as I see it. I have groped my way to how I feel about it.
‘Likewise, if at some stage in the distant future I was to succeed Mama, then obviously I would do my best to fulfil that next role. Sometimes you daydream about the things you might do; I think you could invest the position with something of your own personality and interest, but obviously within the bounds of constitutional propriety.’
Prince William drives Prince Andrew, Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Prince Edward into Balmoral as millions pray for the Queen
4.30pm
In her flat above No 10, Liz Truss and her team are writing the speech she will give once the death of the Queen has been announced.
They are unhappy with a draft given to them by civil servants, which had been written, in the words of one aide, ‘clearly in about 1960’. They are sitting on the floor, as Boris Johnson’s furniture has not yet been replaced.
5.06pm
Princes Andrew and Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, arrive at Balmoral with Prince William at the wheel of a Range Rover. Harry’s private jet is getting ready to take off from Luton airport. He recalled that he spent the flight thinking about his last phone call with his grandmother just four days ago. They had talked about her health, the chaos in Westminster and the poor state of the lawn at Frogmore House. Harry had joked: ‘It looks like the top of my head, Granny! Balding and brown in patches.’
6.15pm
King Charles travels with Camilla and William to his Birkhall estate. Princess Anne has stayed with her mother’s body.
Undertakers from the family-run funeral company of William Purves are on hand.
In the past few years, the firm has taken part in many rehearsals for funeral arrangements in case the Queen died in Scotland. They have switched their signature silver Mercedes hearse to a black one, to be in line with royal protocol.
