The queen knew full well that her remaining time was limited. She had given serious thought to where she could spend her final days and discussed this within the family.
Until the end, she graciously shied away from causing unnecessary inconvenience to others.
“There was a moment when she felt it would be harder if she died at Balmoral,” says Princess Anne (every monarch in England since the founding of Britain had died).
“And I think we tried to convince her that that shouldn't be part of the decision-making process. “So I hope that in the end she felt like that was the right thing to do.”
The queen's exact cause of death, a close family friend says, will never be revealed as she suffered from several illnesses in her final year.
“She had realized that the medical prognosis meant she would not emulate her mother and live to 100, so she was determined to make the best of it.” [final] year,” says a friend.
“She made sure the whole family was awake over the summer so that the little ones in particular would always have fond memories of her.”
Long before the queen became noticeably frail, there had been years of concern in the royal household about how much longer she would be able to reign.
Until the end, the queen graciously hesitated to cause unnecessary inconvenience to others. Pictured: Charles and the Queen during Trooping the Color in June 2022
The preliminary planning for the accession to the throne and coronation of the next monarch actually began at the end of 2015
Serious and detailed consideration was given to the prospect of a regency, with Prince Charles standing in for her if she were incapacitated.
“Since the Queen Mother has already passed her 100th birthday, we naturally had to assume that the Queen would reach the same age.” A reign seemed almost inevitable. “That would have been very difficult,” says a senior former adviser.
“You would still have needed a near-full Queen's household and a near-full Prince's household, and it would have been very hard on the Regent. “I always hoped it wouldn’t happen while I was there, but I honestly didn’t see a way for us to get out of it.”
The working hypothesis was that there might be a protracted, slow decline in the Queen's health or a sudden public collapse during an engagement.
“Either way, we would have gotten more and more voices saying, 'It's time for a regency,'” says one advisor.
“We feared something would happen in public, so engagements were kept very close and very short and media was limited.”
The prospect of a regency was considered seriously and in detail
From time to time, royal advisors drew up plans for various regency options. These range from “light regency” (with minimal princely participation) to “reversible regency” in the event of short-term incapacitation. Another question at one time was what would happen if the Duke of Edinburgh – who would have been on any regency committee before his death – had objected to a regency plan.
The best royal minds pondered all the possibilities.
At one point, a former private secretary to the Prince of Wales, Sir Stephen Lamport, was brought back from his job in the city to help with a new draft.
Aides would note that Prince Charles was always extremely reticent to delve into the subject. “You could show up with all the papers and he would say, 'Did you go through all of this?' Are you satisfied with that?' and that would be it,” says one. “He didn't want to get into the details… I think he felt that when you strive for something, you tempt fate.”
In fact, preliminary planning for the accession to the throne and coronation of the next monarch had already begun at the end of 2015.
According to one official, the government had long been gently pressuring Prince Charles' office to come up with a plan.
The coffin carried by pallbearers after the Queen's funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19, 2022
According to one official, the government had long been gently pressuring Prince Charles' office to come up with a plan
Given the major political unrest in the summer of 2022, there was great concern within the government about possible unrest surrounding Charles' accession to the throne
It was known in the palace that any private secretary who wanted to contact the prince about planning a change of government had to approach the subject very sparingly.
Anything that might give the impression that an impatient prince was getting ahead of himself was subjected to what a senior adviser would call the “Henry V test.”
Would this give the impression that the young Prince Hal was trying to oust the old King Henry IV?
The prince and his aides concluded that forming a committee and discussing coronation plans with Whitehall officials would in fact fail this test.
However, as the Queen approached her 90th birthday, it seemed sensible enough to consider discreetly the tone and structure of the next coronation service.
As it turned out, Elizabeth II couldn't have had better timing. She was actually at Balmoral when she died in her own bedroom on September 8, 2022, aged 96.
“Scotland was the most ambitious location for the ceremony, but things are looking really great in September,” says a senior member of the team.
“It also meant we could plan a coronation in May, which is ideal.” Had the Queen died in July, that would have meant a winter coronation, which would have been miserable. God bless you!'
Looking back at what might have been versus what actually happened, courtiers past and present are united in their amazement at how Elizabeth II's reign came to an end.
It can be summed up in a single word: “masterclass”.
News of the Queen's death – at 3.10pm – was delayed as there was still a list of family members who needed to be informed. Finally, a statement was issued at 6:30 p.m. It simply said: “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.”
The King and Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and return to London tomorrow.' One of the King's first decisions was to ask Princess Anne to take charge of the house party at Balmoral Castle, which was now rapidly spreading.
He also arranged with his sister that she would accompany her mother's coffin to Edinburgh in the coming days, accompanied by her husband, Sir Tim Laurence.
The Princess Royal would prove indispensable in the next few days. She was there when Prince Harry finally arrived. She greeted him with a hug and accompanied him to the queen's bedroom, where he was to pay his respects to his late grandmother.
Harry then joined the family dinner downstairs. However, neither his father nor his brother were there. The King and Queen Camilla had now returned to Birkhall, their home on the Balmoral estate.
There they were greeted by the first of many sights that would leave them speechless in the first days of their reign. When her car pulled up, the entire staff lined up to greet her in full mourning attire.
That evening the couple was joined for dinner by the new Prince of Wales, who would also be staying at Birkhall. The king had to have important but discreet conversations with his elder son. In the past, such a moment would have automatically affected his younger son.
King Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward walk together during the procession in Scotland on September 12, 2022
But not anymore. This clearly wasn't a reason to open your heart and mind to Prince Harry, especially when he was still taking notes for his upcoming book. Charles III needed a clear head and no distractions. “You have to remember that losing a second parent is a big deal, moving up to the older generation is a big deal, and there he was, expected to comfort the whole country,” one remembers of its employees.
For the first 24 hours, London was a strange mix of misery and celebration of a long and glorious reign. In front of Buckingham Palace, some stood in tears, others wanted to raise a toast.
In moments like these, however, public sentiment can quickly shift one way or the other, as the Queen discovered in those feverish days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
No reason to open your heart and mind to Prince Harry
The king was determined to avoid a similar vacuum. That evening, he sat down with Prince William to watch what amounted to a training video that his private secretary had prepared for this very moment. In 2015, Sir Clive Alderton staged and filmed a model of the most complicated event of the first days of a government, the Accession Council.
While the rest of the royal family dined ceremoniously at Balmoral, the new king and prince of Wales sat down to watch the film on an office computer.
Queen Camilla later told a friend that she found it very difficult to sleep that night as she thought about what lay ahead and was awake until 4 a.m.
Late the next morning, the royal couple were on their way to Aberdeen Airport to fly to RAF Northolt in west London. Usually their co-workers would sit next to them and discuss with them everything that would happen upon landing. This time they moved to the front of the plane to give the two of them space to think and read through their extensive briefing packets.
Those attending the Royal party that day still have emotional memories of the reaction as the Royal car drove through central London from RAF Northolt.
“Usually when you see a royal you gawk or gasp or nudge each other,” says one of the royal entourage.
“This time they bowed. The Queen was very touched by the sight of a priest standing on the side of the road shouting, “God save the King!” One or two saluted.'
All of this was extremely moving for the new king and queen. Also the sight of billboards along the A40 showing not only photos of the Queen but also her dates, members of the royal party say.
“It was the addition of the last year '1926-2022' that suddenly caught your eye. “I'm not a whiny person, but that really struck me,” says a senior member of the royal household. “We were all pretty suffocated.”
At Buckingham Palace, the king told the driver to stop the car at the gates and headed straight toward a row of tearful onlookers, his hands outstretched.
However, the first in line didn't want a mere handshake. 'Can I hug you?' She asked. “Of course,” replied the king.
No one would have asked the late queen for a “hug” in a similar situation (nor would they have received a hug if they had).
Queen Camilla later told friends of her lasting memories of people spontaneously singing the national anthem and a woman folding her hands and saying, “Take care of him for us.” “I will,” Queen Camilla replied and did doing their best to control their emotions. 'I promise.'
Queen Elizabeth II rides a horse at Glamis Castle in her younger years
As the Queen approached her 90th birthday, it seemed sensible enough to consider discreetly the tone and structure of the next coronation service
Shortly afterwards Sir Clive Alderton called the staff together for a meeting. He was impressed by the woman who had embraced the king.
For Sir Clive, this was a moment that crystallized the change in government: “This term of government will have an informal formality,” he told staff. That evening Charles III turned to with a speech to the country that he had carefully crafted and rephrased throughout the day.
Queen Camilla stood in a corner of the Blue Drawing Room so that she could see the King, but he could not see her. “She knew the whole thing would upset her – and it did,” says one of those present. “But she didn’t want to upset him.”
Given the major political unrest in the summer of 2022, there was great concern within the government about possible unrest surrounding Charles' accession to the throne.
“We identified this in our integrated review [that] “When you move on to a new sovereign, it is a moment of danger for the country,” admits Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the (Privy) Council.
“We had a lot of political unrest at the time, and while I was focused on making sure all of these events would work well, in the back of my mind I was thinking, 'How is the public doing?' Are you going to answer that?' '
She soon received her answer when, standing behind a pillar, she witnessed the Garter King of Arms proclaiming the proclamation outside St. James's Palace on September 10, followed by a strong three cheers from the company of the Coldstream on duty Guards.
“And then,” says Mordaunt, “over the palace walls, hundreds of thousands of people cheered the king.” They were all through the parks and down to Trafalgar Square. And at that point I shed a tear because I was so relieved that we knew everything was going to be okay.”
Elsewhere this afternoon there was another remarkable scene. Crowds leaving flowers at Cambridge Gate on Windsor's Long Walk were astonished to see a black Land Rover drive up with both the Waleses and the Sussexes inside. Prince William was at the wheel.
“It was entirely William’s idea.” “He organized it in about two hours,” says one of his little advisors.
“He had thought about it for a long time and said, 'I know it's embarrassing, but doesn't it fit into the context of my grandmother's death?' I know he asked a few other people too.'
The two couples then spent nearly 40 minutes meeting crowds and reading messages among the mounds of bouquets and tributes. They left the same way they arrived, in the same car. “I don’t think it was easy for either couple,” says a member of the Welsh team.
The queen knew full well that her remaining time was limited
Pallbearers adjust the Queen's coffin during the funeral service on September 19, 2022
Back at Balmoral, staff at the estate had paid their respects to the late Queen while she “rested” in the ballroom. But on September 11th she prepared to leave the castle for the last time.
Public sentiment can quickly shift in one direction or the other
Led by a piper, the coffin was carried from the castle to the hearse by a carrier group of six ghillies.
They had rehearsed this maneuver for many years in complete secrecy, just in case they were asked to do so. The only orders were a whispered “Left, right” from the head game warden.
The Queen's annual farewell to Balmoral had always been quite an event. First there was their usual tea party with the factor (the estate manager), the vicar of Crathie church and the local doctor and their wives.
Every year the queen would sigh and tell them, “I only wish I could stay another week.” Then the staff would line up outside the castle and send them away waving white handkerchiefs.
This time, says one of those present, many people were too busy sobbing into their handkerchiefs to wave. “Many were in floods,” says someone who was there to see the oak coffin, draped with the royal standard of Scotland and crowned with bushes of sweet peas and white heather, that the Balmoral gardeners had picked that morning .
For some, it was the Queen's Piper's lawsuit that was the final straw. For others, it was the sudden appearance of the queen's two surviving corgis, who looked confused.
“One of the ghillies was torn to pieces afterwards. And it was a tough moment for the Queen's chauffeur, Andy Fitzgerald,” says a staff member. “As he said later, he just had to stare straight ahead and say to himself, 'Refocus!' '
The sight of this tiny convoy emerging from the castle gates and winding its way through the vastness of the Highlands in brilliant sunshine remains one of the enduring images of those days. Led by a single outrider, the Queen's hearse was followed by the State Bentley, which carried the Princess Royal along with her husband.
“It was a privilege to be there, especially on the drive from Balmoral to Edinburgh where you literally saw people’s reactions,” she says.
“As you progressed, you realized the effort people had gone to – lining up the tractors and cleaning them; I literally braided the ponies and made them look chic.”
The effort involved in getting a tractor or pony looking pristine again – especially in the middle of the annual harvest – was certainly not lost on her. The way the tractors lowered their buckets and the ponies bowed their heads in tribute was no different.
The Queen's grandchildren are pictured before her funeral in September 2022
Members of the company take a look at the flowers left for the Queen
For those of a certain generation, it was reminiscent of the dockers who dipped their cranes on the banks of the Thames in honor as Sir Winston Churchill's coffin was carried away from his state funeral in 1965.
“You just had these snaps that showed real respect in a way that nothing else could.” “It was extremely impressive,” the princess adds.
Immediately behind the hearse and the State Bentley was the car carrying the palace's master of ceremonies, Alexander de Montfort, and the Rev. Kenneth MacKenzie, vicar of Crathie.
“During this first stage the train made its way through the landscape [the Queen] knew it well. “Many of the people lining the route were people she knew and recognized,” MacKenzie says. “We were driving so slowly that you could literally see tears welling up in people's eyes. And there was almost always this involuntary movement of people putting their hand on their heart.”
As Deeside's smaller lanes gave way to larger streets, the number grew. Entire bars were empty, and their patrons raised their glasses among up to ten people in the smallest towns. Further south, Dundee – a stronghold of Scottish nationalism – was out in large numbers.
The crowds were non-stop throughout the journey, which lasted almost six hours. MacKenzie recalls that on several stretches of the A90 the procession was occasionally joined by horses and riders galloping through the surrounding countryside.
The transition to a new sovereign is a moment of danger for the country
As the journey progressed, the Princess Royal and Sir Tim realized it was almost impossible to touch the refreshments at their feet in the car for fear of appearing disrespectful. There was only a single time window.
“We had a few bottles of water and something to snack on because the journey was quite long,” remembers the princess.
“But to be honest the only place we could have had a drink from a bottle was crossing the Forth Bridge where there were no people.”
By the time the coffin reached Edinburgh's Royal Mile, the pavements were no longer holding up. Even the most hardened and cynical observers of Scotland's fractious political landscape began to privately express a thought: Could the cunning Queen have planned it this way all along?
The following day, the King and his siblings marched behind the Queen's coffin and up the Royal Mile to attend Scotland's service of thanksgiving for her life at St Giles' Cathedral. For many, including the Princess Royal, it was the first time they heard or sang “God save our merciful King…”.
“You have to stop and think about what you're saying.” “It's a very obvious indication of change,” the princess remembers. “I just had to concentrate!”
© Robert Hardman, 2024
- Adapted from Charles III New King. New dish. The Inside Story by Robert Hardman, published by Macmillan on January 18th at £22. To order a copy for £17.60 (offer valid until 29/02/2024; free UK delivery on orders over £25), go to the mailshop. co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.