A brief yet unsettling proclamation opened the document. The Queen appointed Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister of Canada less than 48 hours before her doctors expressed “alarm.”
The Queen, age 96, was under “medical monitoring” but “remained comfortable” at her Scottish getaway, Balmoral Castle, according to a medical report published by Buckingham Palace.
At 12:32 pm (1132 GMT), Truss shocked lawmakers who had come to hear him declare a two-year freeze on energy costs.
Prince Charles, the heir apparent, and his wife Camilla, who were already residing on the Balmoral estate, were welcomed to Balmoral Castle within minutes of their arrival.
Princess Anne, the queen’s daughter, was also in Scotland at the time, and she is said to have made it to Balmoral in time as well.
It is believed that both were present at the time of the queen’s death on Thursday afternoon.
But other family members had a long and ultimately fruitless run from London.
Late in the afternoon, Prince William, the second in line to the throne, along with Princes Andrew and Edward and Edward’s wife, Sophie, who is very close to the monarch, arrived in a dreary Aberdeen aboard a special RAF plane.
William, the new heir, got behind the wheel and drove the 80 kilometers (50 miles) to Balmoral.
When the glum-faced royals finally arrived at the Balmoral gate at around 5:00 p.m., it was too late.
The prime minister learned the queen had passed away that afternoon, at around 4:30 p.m.
While this was going on, Prince Harry, Charles’s second son, was still making his way from London.
A representative for the couple previously stated that both he and his wife, Meghan, will be making the trip to Balmoral.
However, Harry ultimately decided to travel without anybody else, and he was still in the air when the official palace announcement was made to the world at 6:30 p.m.
It was not until much later that he finally made it to Balmoral.
After Meghan’s run of devastating critiques of the royal family, BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell speculated live on air that she decided not to travel because “she would not be particularly warmly welcomed.”
According to the palace statement, the queen passed away “peacefully,” however the announcement did not specify the cause of death, as is customary for royals.
The Daily Mail said that sources said there was “no chronic disease.”
In spite of her reduced workload in recent months, Queen Elizabeth II met with both outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson and incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper’s sources, the monarch’s mood suddenly changed the night of Wednesday into Thursday, despite the fact that her recent “mobility challenges” have been widely reported.