Queen Elizabeth’s Final Diary Entry Revealed: A Simple Note Just Days Before Her Death

Robert Hardman, the royal biographer, shares insights from the revised edition of “Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story

The contents of Queen Elizabeth’s final diary entry have been revealed in the pages of a royal biography.

The late Queen wrote her final entry just two days before her death at age 96 on Sept. 8, 2022, Robert Hardman writes in the updated version of his book Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story, which came out Nov. 7.

While at her beloved Balmoral on Sept. 6, Her late Majesty — who fastidiously kept a diary throughout her record-breaking 70-year reign — sat down to, as she always did, record the day’s events. “It is unsurprising that the monarch was diligent in her documentation, even as illness made her increasingly frail,” Tatler reported.

The journal entry was simple: “Edward came to see me,” Hardman wrote, referring to Sir Edward Young, her private secretary, who was helping the Queen make arrangements for the swearing in of newly elected U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss’ ministers. Appointing Truss on Sept. 6 would prove to be the Queen’s final public engagement after a lifetime of public service.

“It transpires that she was still writing it at Balmoral two days before her death,” Hardman wrote, per an excerpt in The Telegraph. “Her last entry was as factual and practical as ever.”

Queen Elizabeth’s diary was not a place for introspection but rather a log of the events that had transpired throughout her busy days, likely both to help her remember what happened on any given day, and possibly to serve as an archive of her day-to-day happenings for historians in the future.

“I have no time to record conversations, only events,” Queen Elizabeth once told society diarist Kenneth Rose.

A former member of the royal household told The Sun in 2019 that Queen Elizabeth wrote in her diary with a fountain pen using black ink, and that each diary was marked with her cypher and numbered with a Roman numeral. The diaries were leatherbound, and writing in her diary was the last act of the day for the late Queen every night “no matter how late the hour or how weary she may be,” the former member of the royal household said. “It is an unmissable duty, and she writes at a desk, never in bed.” 

Her son and heir King Charles also keeps a journal, but “He doesn’t write great narrative diaries like he used to,” a senior courtier told Hardman. Instead, he “scribbles down his recollections and reflections” at the end of every day.