King Charles only found out about his mother's deteriorating health a few hours before the public when he took an urgent phone call 'then everyone went silent', royal editor claims

Joseanne That’s really interesting! ?

My dear friend died a few years ago - much too soon. She was at home with her husband and two adult children, and they went out for some fresh air for ten minutes. Evidently she asked her husband if they were there, and when he said they had gone out, she died within minutes. A nursing friend said this often happens; something makes us not want our loved ones to see our final breath.

Joseanne ?????

Wow, I just knew I was famous and should have had a seat in The Abbey yesterday! My Great Great Grandfather was a physician and surgeon to Queen Victoria! I couldn't lay my hands on the documents to prove this last week because I was over the Channel in France, but I was pretty sure. (More personal stuff not for publication here.)

Maybe my relative saved her life during her reign, maybe he went riding with her, maybe, maybe?
At least now I can enter the royal threads with more vigour and inside knowledge as I pursue my royal - ish ancestry!

I only said alleged, to save some people on here rearing up at me demanding proof, written statements and so on. Yes, I do understand it to be true. As has been said Shipman has not helped terminal care, and that letting a dog suffer, as we who are particularly afflicted now must, would earn its carer a jail sentence seems to me to be a funny old world.

snowberryZ

grows tuff, my comments are referring to the Queen, not your stepmother.

I know. Why the need to be so sniffy? Other people have commented that death can sometimes be quite sudden and unexpected, even with people who are known to be terminally ill. Just commenting that I don't find the fact that the Queen's family didn't know that she was about to die that unusual.

grumppa

Has the Newsweek story been corroborated anywhere else?

.

This journalist says she was actually there that morning.

"American journalist Jenna Bush Hager was at King Charles‘ Scottish home, Dumfries House, on the morning of [the Queen's] death."

www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/royals/charles-and-camilla-phone-call-queen-dying/

It’s true that dying people often want to be left alone.
I read that the Queen Mother told the Queen to have a break from the bedside, so she went for a ride and the QM died.

Shipman has not helped terminal care.
My mother’s doctor had two nurses with him for her final morphine shot in this house, I imagine to keep a check. She would have been helped by more I’m sure.
Wouldn’t we all want a hefty dose to help us out of this world?

M0nica

Jjaberwok* nothing 'alleged' about it. It was discovered when the relevant doctor's diary was read after his death. There has never been any suggestion that any member of the Royal Family knew what he up to. It was entiely his decision.

However, at a time when painkillers were not that good. It was almost part of a doctor's skills, to know when to quietly, without telling anyone, hasten a death that was very close to its inevitable end and I think it unlikely that this was the first or last time that doctor would have acted like that.

Tragically, Shipman put an end to doctors helping with a bit too much morphine at the end, even when requested clearly by the patient- Too scared of being sued.

Is there proof as to the purpose of the timing? Surely during sleep would be most merciful.

Jjaberwok* nothing 'alleged' about it. It was discovered when the relevant doctor's diary was read after his death. There has never been any suggestion that any member of the Royal Family knew what he up to. It was entiely his decision.

However, at a time when painkillers were not that good. It was almost part of a doctor's skills, to know when to quietly, without telling anyone, hasten a death that was very close to its inevitable end and I think it unlikely that this was the first or last time that doctor would have acted like that.

Allegedly George Vth 's death was 'engineered' to occur in time to be announced in the Times newspaper in the morning and not in the more down market Evening Standard in the evening. What the truth of this is, who knows.

grows tuff, my comments are referring to the Queen, not your stepmother.

growstuff

It's been rumoured the Queen had bone cancer. If that's true, death could have been very quick. My stepmother had bone cancer. She was quite frail, but quite lively and certainly in full control of her mind. One evening, she felt faint and became unconscious. My father called an ambulance, which arrived promptly, but she died on the way to hospital. Apparently, the cancer caused calcium in the bloodstream, which affected her brain and caused unconsciousness and death. It was quite sudden and I doubt if she even knew what was happening.

I may be wrong but I think its unusual for older people to get bone cancer.
If she had cancer in her bones it was very likely secondary bone cancer.
Primary could have been something else

The Queen's father died in his sleep when no one expected it. He was known to be very ill but he had apparently gone to bed in good spirits that evening. Hence the terrible shock to his family. When someone is visibly "fading" you can at least begin to prepare for it.

Has the Newsweek story been corroborated anywhere else?

When people are fading, as the Queen was in the months before her death, I do not think that they are necessarily ill, just gently winding down and lack the energy and facility to keep going, which is what we saw. But someone in that situation may be like it for days, or months - and then suddenly they sink and die, which was what happened to the Queen. Hence all the sudden rushing up to Balmoral On Monday and Tuesday, she was frail but able to receive her ex and new Prime Ministers. On Thursday, she died. She probably took herself by surprise!

I suspect that her death certificate will say that she died of 'old age'. I think that is what the Duke of Edinburgh's death certificate said. there was no dramatic medical emergency at the end, just a gentle drifting in to death. The doctors attending her were doing just that, essentially keeping her company and comfortable.

A bulletin before George V died described his life as 'moving peacefully to its close' that is essentially what happened to the Queen in the last day of her life.

That sounds like my grandmother in her final years. She always loved pottering around the shops but her mobility failed and she was no longer able to do that, She told me once "If the Lord takes me in my sleep tonight I will be quite happy". Unfortunately she did not die in her sleep but it was very quick.

What all of us would choose, probably.

My mum hated the lingering, not able to read or play the piano, or walk around the garden. She she had a wonderful, busy, exciting life until 85 - then the last 9 she just wanted to go...

Whatever the Queen died of, I think what a blessing it happened as it did.

Yes, sad that some family members were not in time to be with her before she ‘went home’ as she has been quoted as saying, but how much more fitting and yes, dignified, that she went peacefully and quickly.

Better than deteriorating over weeks, with bulletins about her failing health all the time.

I think it’s what the Queen would have chosen.

I think the queen knew she was living on borrowed time for some months. She missed attending the Cenotaph and the Trooping of the Colour, which were ceremonies which meant a great deal to her. Also the Highland Games. So she must have been feeling ill then.

And yes - people can "go" very suddenly. My grandmother (96) pointed to something on a shelf, gave a little cry, and fell down. The ambulance crew pronounced her dead at the scene. It was a massive heart attack but still a terrible shock for the family.

It was the same with my father. My sister and I sat with him for 6 hours, then nipped out for 10 minutes for a cup of coffee in the cafe opposite the ward entrance. When we returned to the ward, he had gone.

A nurse said, sometimes people want to die alone and somehow hold on until they get a moment to themselves. If that was the case, it was entirely consistent with my father's character.

The blood often congregates in certain areas before death my mums forehead went purple blue before my eyes as I sat and watched My daughter a nurse was with me and told me that it was a normal process in dying after she died the normal colour returned
I think that thing about bone cancer is a rumour of which there are many no one knows She had had her time and, lucky in life, she went quickly

I also had to rush to the bedside of my best friend, who died of pancreatic cancer within a few months, aged 52. She waited for me, and died as soon as I took her in my arms. And I knew why- her jusband was also a childhood friend, and she knew he would be distraught and unable to cope, and she wanted me to take care of him.

But in the end, she waited to be alone to die.

As did my father, I believe. He was a loving but very private man and perhaps he felt he needed to be alone and not cause us more grief.