Queen Elizabeth’s Last Words Revealed in Final Diary Entry Days Before Death
The royal family typically keeps diary entries to document their day-to-day activities. However, in September 2022, Queen Elizabeth would pen her last entry into this book days before her death. She wrapped her legacy in six words.
Queen Elizabeth’s last words revealed
Robert Hardman, author of Charles III: New King, New Court, The Inside Story found that Queen Elizabeth’s final words reflected her practicality. The Telegraph reprinted an excerpt from his book detailing the monarch’s final diary entry.
“It transpires that she was still writing it at Balmoral two days before her death,” Hardman explained. “Her last entry was as factual and practical as ever.”
“It could have been describing another normal working day starting in the usual way: ‘Edward came to see me.’ As she noted the arrangements which her private secretary, Sir Edward Young, had made for the swearing-in of the new ministers of {Lis] Truss’s administration.”
Appointing Britain’s shortest ruling prime minister from Balmoral was Elizabeth’s final public engagement before her death on Sept. 8. 2022. Writing in her diary was the last thing she did at night before bed.
Secrets of Queen Elizabeth’s diary
In 2019, a former member of the royal household told The Sun that Queen Elizabeth wrote in her diary with a fountain pen using only black ink. Each diary was marked with her cipher and numbered with a Roman numeral.
The queen wrote in her leather-bound book every evening. The diary was not a journal, but rather, an ongoing record of her working life for the royal archives.
The Sun revealed that the monarch kept to a routine, writing “no matter how late the hour or how weary she may be.” A former royal staffer added, “It is an unmissable duty, and she writes at a desk, never in bed.”
The diary accompanied Elizabeth wherever she was staying. It was kept in a black leather case and there were no dates on the cover; only she knew the year each diary was written. Most importantly, Elizabeth only trusted her husband, Prince Philip, with the diary’s contents.
King Charles keeps a different type of diary
King Charles followed in his mother’s footsteps by keeping a diary of his life as the United Kingdom’s monarch. However, the contents are more reflective than his mother’s practical tone, says author Robert Hardman.
The Telegraph quoted a senior courtier of Charles’s who admitted, “He doesn’t write great narrative diaries like he used to, but ‘scribbles down his recollections and reflections’ on the day’s events.”
Per Hardman, this type of diary is very different than the one he kept as Prince of Wales, which was more “humorous and readable.” Today, his entries are reportedly not as detailed as in his younger years.
Queen Elizabeth reigned over the United Kingdom for 70 years. She died at the age of 96 at her Balmoral home.
