Queen Elizabeth’s final moments revealed in private secretary’s notes

A note written by the queen’s private secretary about her final moments will be published for the first time in a biography of King Charles.

Queen Elizabeth II pictured in 2019. Picture: Getty Images

In the afternoon of September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary sat down to write a personal note marking her death.

“Very peaceful,” he wrote. “In her sleep. Slipped away. Old age. She wouldn’t have been aware of anything. No pain.”

The note by Sir Edward Young, who had served as the Queen’s private secretary since 2017, is lodged at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and will be published for the first time in a biography of the King by Robert Hardman.

His book, Charles III: New King, New Court, pieces together the moments after the Queen’s death at 3.10pm, ending a 70-year reign that outlasted any other monarch in British history.

Soon after Young, now Lord Young of Old Windsor, wrote his note, a footman brought a locked red box found at the Queen’s deathbed at Balmoral. Inside were two sealed letters whose contents remain secret. One was to Young himself, the other to her son.

There was also her final order: a list of people to be appointed to the Order of Merit, the honour created by Edward VII for people of “exceptional distinction in the arts, learning, sciences and other areas such as public service”.

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II. Picture: AFP

The monarch, 96, had died with her affairs in order. Hardman writes: “Even on her deathbed, there had been work to do. And she had done it.”

The book states that Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, spent an hour with the Queen privately before she died. Despite signs of the Queen’s frailty, the rapid decline of her health in her final hours meant that her son had to move fast. He flew to Balmoral and read the latest briefing for Operation London Bridge, the government’s plan for the days after her death, in the helicopter.

Queen Elizabeth II's Private Secretary Sir Edward Young. Picture: Getty Images

He arrived to find that the Princess Royal and Angela Kelly, the Queen’s dresser, were taking turns at a vigil by her bedside. The Rev Kenneth MacKenzie, of nearby Crathie Kirk, read to the Queen from the Bible.

Charles received the news of his mother’s death when he went out to clear his head and was driving back to the castle after gathering mushrooms. He pulled the car over while his aide received the news. He heard himself addressed for the first time as “Your Majesty” before putting the car back into gear and driving on.

It was only when he called the Buckingham Palace switchboard that he had the dilemma of how to style himself. Rather than break the news to the operator that he was the King, he announced simply: “It’s me.”

Charles, thinking that his mother still had days to live, had called both of his sons personally, asking them to travel to Balmoral to say farewell. In the event, both arrived too late.

The book says that after the Queen’s death Charles tried repeatedly to call his younger son to break the news to him personally, but Harry was already in the air and he could not get through. Harry recalled in his memoir Spare that he argued with his father about whether his wife Meghan could also join them at Balmoral.

The Daily Mail reports that a family friend told Hardman: “Why did Harry even feel the need to put this in his book? The Prince of Wales had enough to think about without worrying where the Sussexes’ next grievance was coming from.”

Charles reassured Harry that Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, would also not be attending. A royal aide said that Catherine was unable to go because she needed to look after their children rather than being expressly uninvited. “It was luck rather than judgment, but it made it a lot easier to tell Harry he was coming alone,” the friend said.

The Times