Liz Truss, who was Prime Minister at the time of the late monarch’s death, has shared details from her final meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
The Prime Minster, who stepped down from her political position not long after, met with the late Queen on September 6 – just two days before her death.
The late Queen passed away on September 8 at Balmoral, which is where she had been staying for the summer.
The late Queen had welcomed Ms Truss to her home in the Scottish Highlands on September 6, 2022 to appoint her prime minister, with health issues meaning she was not able to travel to London to do so.
According to Ms Truss, The late Queen told former prime minister that they would be “meeting again soon” at her final official engagement before her death.
Speaking to GB News to mark the first anniversary of the late Queen’s death and recounting the period that followed, Ms Truss recalled the King was “very, very resolute” when she spoke to him on the phone the day his mother died and his reign began.
The politician described the late monarch, who was 96 when she died, as appearing “frail”, but she said she was “mentally alert”, “absolutely on top of” the proceedings and reassured Ms Truss they would meet again soon.
She said: “In the meeting at Balmoral, she was absolutely on top of what was happening.
“She was very, very keen to reassure me that we’d be meeting again soon. It was very important to her.”
Ms Truss added: “Although she was physically quite frail, she was absolutely mentally alert.”
The former Prime Minister added that there was no indication the late Queen was gravely ill.
She said: “I was obviously only in the first few days of the job of being prime minister. I was thinking about many, many different things. But the assumption absolutely was that this would be the first of many meetings.”
Speaking of the late monarch, Ms Truss said: “She was very determined to do her duty, right to the end. We had a very, very good meeting. She was upbeat.”
Recalling the following day, Ms Truss recounted how she was told of a worsening situation on September 7 – with the postponement of a Privy Council.
She said: “I arrived just before 6pm for the meeting. Everybody was there waiting around and we waited for a few minutes and then the news arrived that the Queen would no longer be able to do the meeting.
“And that was the first I heard of it. But clearly it was a very ominous sign,” she told GB News’ royal correspondent Cameron Walker.
Speaking of September 8, Ms Truss said: “Things were clearly getting even worse the next day, so it was a dawning realisation I think, not just for me, but for my colleagues, that we were facing (it).”
