AND THEN SHE WAS GONE

It's been more than a year since Queen Elizabeth died leaving the royal family facing an uncertain future. In this extract from his new book, author Robert Hardman reveals glimpses into the pain and poignancy of the days that followed her sudden death

THE queen knew full well her remaining time was limited. She’d been giving serious thought as to where she might spend her final days and discussed it within the family. Right to the end she was endearingly reluctant to cause unnecessary inconvenience to others.

“There was a moment when she felt that it would be more difficult if she died at Balmoral,” says Princess Anne (every monarch since the creation of Great Britain had died in England).

“And I think we did try to persuade her that shouldn’t be part of the decision-making process. So I hope she felt that that was right in the end.”

The precise cause of the queen’s death, a close friend of the family says, will never be known because she’d been suffering from multiple conditions in her final year.

“She had come to realise the medical prognosis meant she wasn’t going to emulate her mother and reach 100, so she’d been determined to make the most of that [final] year,” one friend says.

“She made sure she had all the family up over the summer so that the young ones in particular would always be left with happy memories of her.”

Well before the queen had become noticeably frail there had been years of anxiety within the royal household about how long she could continue to reign.

Serious and detailed thought had been given to the prospect of a regency, whereby Charles might stand in for her if she was incapacitated.

“With the Queen Mother going on past her 100th birthday, of course we had to think that the queen would reach the same age. A regency seemed almost inevitable. That would have been very difficult,” a senior former aide says.