More than a year has passed since the death of one of the most prominent British figures in history: Queen Elizabeth II. On September 8, 2022, the United Kingdom said goodbye to its sovereign for more than seven decades. At the age of 96, the monarch left this world, leaving a vast legacy behind her. Now, sixteen months later, the late queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young, has revealed information about her final moments. He first revealed that she died peacefully in her sleep and who was with him in her final moments. He has now released the last two letters from her.
In an excerpt from royal biographer Robert Hardman’s book, Charles III: New King, New Court. The inside story (to be published on January 18), the author describes how staff discovered two private letters that the Queen had written before her death last September 2022. This is reported by the Daily Mail. Know now, before her death, Queen Elizabeth wrote two private letters: one to her son, King Charles III, and another to her chief assistant.
Following the monarch’s death, senior staff, including the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young, were planning the days ahead when a footman presented them with one of the Queen’s famous red boxes. This is the daily submission of documents from ministers across the UK. There may also be documents and correspondence from representatives of the Commonwealth and other countries around the world. But it was nothing like that. “He was the last one who had reached the Queen before her death,” Hardman reveals in the text.
“Like all the red boxes, it had only two keys, one for the monarch and one for her private secretary on duty,” he explains. Inside the box, Young discovered that the Queen had left a sealed letter for her son, then Prince Charles, and a private letter for her assistant. “We’ll probably never know what they said. However, it’s pretty clear that the Queen knew the end was imminent and she had planned accordingly. Were they final instructions or final farewells? Or both?” Hardman says. “Elizabeth II had been completing her last pending matters,” he stated.
The Queen also left behind her list of candidates to join the Order of Merit, her last royal duty. “The Queen had always taken this very seriously,” Hardman writes in an excerpt revealed by the Daily Mail. “The paperwork had arrived two days early so she could review the notes and mark her options. Here it was, completed and returned for Sir Edward to make the necessary arrangements. It was the last document handled by Queen Elizabeth II. Even on her deathbed, there was work to do. And she had done it,” he said.
This Saturday, other details of the hours before the death of Isabel II came to light. Robert Hardman records that the Queen died “very peacefully. While she slept. She ran away. In old age. She would not have been aware of anything. No pain.” On the other hand, said biography also revealed that Princess Anne and the queen’s closest friend, Angela Kelly, alternated being at her bedside while the Reverend Kenneth MacKenzie read the Bible to the queen. The figure of Isabel is so relevant that, even a year after her death, she continues to make headlines.
