E-Paper
Queen Elizabeth left this sealed death-bed letter for son Charles: ‘She knew…’
Queen Elizabeth's last red box included a private letter for King Charles and was brought down by staff at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
Queen Elizabeth II, who died aged 96 in September 2022, left a sealed death-bed letter for her son King Charles III, a new book claimed. Royal biographer Robert Hardman claimed in his book that the late monarch was working on her traditional “red boxes” of official correspondence till the very end. The last red box included a private letter for her son and was brought down by staff at Balmoral Castle in Scotland where she breathed her last on September 8, 2022.
What the book claims on Queen Elizabeth II?
Robert Hardman described that when private secretaries Sir Edward Young and Sir Clive Alderton settled down to work their way through official business, a “footman appeared with a red box – the last one that had gone up to the Queen before her death”. As Sir Edward was “not sure what to expect as he turned the lock. Inside, he found that Elizabeth II had left a sealed letter to the Prince of Wales and a private letter to himself. Were they final instructions or final farewells? Or both? We will probably never know what they said. However, it is clear enough that the Queen had known that the end was imminent and had planned accordingly.”
Read more: King Charles wants Kate Middleton to be promoted to this role that he once had
What did the box include other than the letter?
The box included late Queen Elizabeth’s approved shortlist of candidates to receive the Order of Merit, one of the highest honours in the gift of the British monarch.
“It was the last document ever handled by Queen Elizabeth II. Even on her deathbed, there had been work to do. And she had done it," the royal biographer wrote in the book titled ‘Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story'.
What other claims about Queen Elizabeth are made in the book?
The late Queen seemed “energised” by a win for her horse Love Affairs at the Goodwood races just days before, the book claimed. She appeared “buzzy” over pre-dinner drinks and decided to have dinner alone in her room after a tiring day of holding audiences with outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson, and incoming prime minister Liz Truss.
