Devastating new details about late Queen Elizabeth’s final hours

This article was one of Herald Lifestyle’s best-read stories of 2024.

The late Queen Elizabeth had been “buzzy” and preparing to join an important meeting from her bedside – but had to cancel as her health began to fail the day before her death, it’s been claimed.

In his book, Charles III: New King, New Court, author Robert Hardman detailed the late monarch’s final days and revealed the moments leading up to her difficult decision to pull out of her final duty.

The Queen died at 3.10pm on September 8, 2022, after more than 70 years on the throne.

Just two days before she passed, she met the departing British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and his replacement, Liz Truss, at Balmoral and attended a drinks party that same evening, the author explained.

“She was quite buzzy over pre-dinner drinks,” one guest at the party told Hardman.

“But then she said she was going upstairs to have dinner alone.”

The monarch then spent the next day in bed but reportedly arranged with the Privy Council to dial in via video link.

As her health deteriorated, that was amended to allow for her to call from her bedroom in an audio-only capacity, according to Hardman.

But just moments before the meeting was set to get underway, the Queen reportedly made the difficult decision to cancel entirely on “medical advice”.

Queen Elizabeth II presents Prince Charles, Prince of Wales with the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour during a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show in 2009 in London. Photo / Getty Images

It was that evening, on September 7, that then-Prince Charles was advised by Princess Anne and his private secretary to make his way urgently to his mother’s bedside, with fears that the end was near.

Hardman writes that the following day, Charles was told his mother had died over the phone, having briefly left her bedside to have a moment to himself outside.

Sadly, the majority of the royal family, who were en route to Scotland, didn’t make it in time to say goodbye to the late Queen.

It was later confirmed that she had passed away at 3.10pm, with Prince William, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward and his wife Sophie landing 40 minutes later.

Prince Harry, who was left out of the family travel arrangements amid worsening tensions, later wrote in Spare that he learned of his grandmother’s death by reading it in a BBC breaking news alert, moments after his own flight landed.

This article was originally published on November 2, 2024.