The last recorded words of the late Queen Elizabeth II have been revealed by former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Truss, 48, visited Britain’s longest-serving monarch at his beloved Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, just two days before his death in September 2022.
In her new memoir, serialized in the Mail, Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister revealed how the Queen advised her to pace herself.
Mrs Truss – the last of 15 prime ministers to serve the Queen – has now said Sun the last six words that the monarch said to him when their meeting ended on September 6, 2022.
The Queen said: “I’ll see you again next week.” Mrs Truss recalled: “I absolutely thought that would happen.”
On September 8, just two days after the couple was photographed holding hands, the world was plunged into mourning when Buckingham Palace announced the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Ms Truss visited Britain’s longest-serving monarch at his beloved Balmoral Castle in Scotland just two days before his death in September 2022.
Liz Truss (pictured) was the last of 15 prime ministers to serve the late Queen Elizabeth II.
The official cause of death would later be recorded as “old age.”
Truss, who had flown to Scotland after defeating Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest in the summer of 2022, survived just 49 days in office.
His brief tenure was marred by economic turmoil – including reforms that sent the pound tumbling – before his ouster from the No 10 spot.
Speaking about her final meeting with the Queen on The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots programme, Ms Truss said: “She was an extremely wise woman and very, very thoughtful.”
The Mail has previously revealed that Ms Truss writes about the late Queen in the book Ten Years to Save the West: “She was completely in tune with everything that was happening, as well as being typically sharp and witty.”
‘Towards the end of our conversation, she warned me that being prime minister means getting incredibly old. She also gave me two pieces of advice: “Pace yourself.” Maybe she should have listened.’
Summoned to Scotland due to the Queen’s ill health, Truss described her as “frail” but “alert”, “absolutely aware” of everything and seemed determined to see each other again.
At the time, the Queen used a cane because she had suffered episodic mobility problems.
Faced with the news of the Queen’s death, which came just days after Truss entered No 10, the former prime minister remembers thinking: ‘Why me? Why now?’
The state ceremony and the protocol that followed left her “a long way from my natural comfort zone,” she writes. Mrs Truss said she burst into tears “in a flood of tears on the sofa”. She added: “Once again, grief was mixed with a feeling of awe at the weight of the event and the fact that it was happening under my watch.”
‘Ten years to save the West’: the new book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss
Ms Truss admitted that previous prime ministers might have better adapted to events by providing “the necessary fast-paced rhetoric and performative statesmanship”.
He said that, despite being under enormous political pressure, his first meeting with King Charles sparked “a strange sense of camaraderie between us as we both began our new roles and had to navigate uncharted territory.” By this time, Conservative MPs had already begun taking steps to relieve Ms Truss of her duties. As she bowed to Charles, he said, ‘So you’re back again?’
Mrs. Truss replied, “It is with great pleasure,” but the king added, “Dear, oh dear.” Anyway…’
On the anniversary of the Queen’s death in September 2023, Ms Truss said the Queen was “mentally alert” during their meeting.
“At the meeting at Balmoral she was absolutely aware of what was happening,” he told GB News at the time.
“She was very, very interested in assuring me that we would meet again soon. It was very important to her.
‘I had met the Queen before when I was Justice Secretary. I have met her on several occasions. And although she was quite frail physically, she was always mentally alert and determined to do her duty.’