Queen Elizabeth couldn’t reach Prince Philip’s bedside before his death: royal biographer
New details have emerged about what the late Queen Elizabeth II did on April 9, 2021, the day her husband, Prince Philip, died.
Queen Elizabeth was unable to reach the former Duke of Edinburgh’s bedside before his death at the age of 99, royal biographer Giles Brandreth claims.
It was reported that the queen was at her side when her husband died, but Brandreth wrote in his book, “Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait,” “In fact, I don’t believe she was there.”
“The Duke of Edinburgh was lying in a hospital bed in his dressing room at Windsor Castle. That morning, he went to the bathroom with the help of a nurse.”
Brandreth, a former Conservative MP and now chancellor of the University of Chester, claims Prince Philip said he felt “a bit faint” when he returned to the room and needed help getting back into bed.
Brandreth wrote, “The nurse called the Duke’s assistant and the Queen’s page Paul Whybrew for help – and he died before the Queen could be called. The Queen had not yet risen. And they were not called until the doctor came and pronounced the Duke dead.”
The royal biographer first met the Queen in 1968, when he was 20. According to the Daily Mirror, Brandreth is considered a “close friend” of Queen Elizabeth who has “known Philip and Queen Elizabeth for decades.”
Describing his relationship with the royal couple, Brandreth told The Times in 2021 that there is a degree of closeness between those within and outside the royal family.
“The Duke has been very friendly to me over 40 years,” Brandreth said. “But in the royal family you get friendship, not allyship, and you have to remember that difference.”
Due to pandemic precautions, only 30 family members and loved ones attended the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral when it was held at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2021. The hour-long ceremony, which was largely planned by Philip himself, included a customized Land Rover hearse and a performance of the Royal Navy hymn.
As spectators at the funeral service watched, the Queen sat alone on a bench, wearing a black mask.
“In some ways, I’m glad we didn’t see that moment,” Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, said in an interview with CBC in 2023. “And when you see the picture, it’s somehow much worse.”
Comparing her personal experience to that of the broadcast audience, the 74-year-old princess said: “You saw more than we did, [since we were] With the coffin.”
The now deceased royal couple first met at the wedding of Princess Marina of Greece and Prince George, Duke of Kent in 1934. On 9 July 1947, Elizabeth and Philip announced their engagement and married at Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947.
The couple have four children – King Charles III, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward – as well as eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith told PEOPLE about the royal match in 2022 that the queen “fell in love and never looked at anyone else.”
Queen Elizabeth paid public tribute to Prince Philip on his 50th wedding anniversary in 1997.
“He’s a man who doesn’t accept compliments easily, but he has been my strength and support all these years,” she said of her husband at the time. “And I … owe him more than he can ever claim.”
The couple celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in November 2020, and the 99-year-old Duke died five months later.
Former palace spokesperson Ailsa Anderson spoke to PEOPLE about the Duke’s funeral in 2021.
“The irony is that it was probably exactly what he wanted,” Anderson said. “No fuss, no trouble. All his life, he never knew what all the fuss was about.”
Queen Elizabeth will die on September 8, 2022, at the age of 96, roughly a year and a half after her husband’s passing.
The death certificate officially stated his cause of death as “old age.”
The royal couple are buried next to each other in the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle.
