King Charles was told about the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth while he was driving back to the residence she was staying in.
The then-Prince of Wales had been with the late Queen at Balmoral, Scotland, that morning and had popped back to his own home nearby.
When he was on his way back to his mother’s bedside on September 8 2022, just hours after last seeing her, he received the call that confirmed her death and the fact he was now the King of the country.
In his book Charles III New King. New Court. The Inside Story, Robert Hardman said Charles had stopped his car and took a call from his late mother’s private secretary Sir Edward Young.
This was when he was addressed as Your Majesty for the first time.
Mr Hardman wrote: “King Charles succeeded to the throne at the wheel. To be more precise, he had just turned off the B976 onto the back drive of the Balmoral estate and was driving through a part of the world as dear and familiar to him as any, when he learned that he was now sovereign of the United Kingdom and fourteen other realms, covering a large part of the Earth’s surface.
“Schoolchildren are taught that the longest reign in British history began at a Kenyan watering hole; that Princess Elizabeth was watching wildlife from the branches of a giant fig tree when King George VI died in his sleep on 6 February 1952 that his dutiful daughter, having climbed up as a Princess, climbed down as Queen.
“History will record that, seven decades later, on the afternoon of 8 September 2022, her son and heir was on an unmarked Scottish country road, at the wheel of his car, when he was first addressed as ‘Your Majesty’.
“He had been to visit the Queen at Balmoral Castle earlier in the day and had then spent a few hours at his nearby home, Birkhall, before returning to the castle.
“In the manner of his late mother, he had climbed into the car as both Prince of Wales and Duke of Rothesay (his title when in Scotland ).Twenty minutes later, he would climb out of it as King Charles III – with the new Queen at his side.”
Princess Anne was believed to have been with the late Queen during her final moments.
Other members of the family, including the late Queen’s other two children Prince Edward and Prince Andrew, did not make it to Balmoral in time to say goodbye to their mother.
Prince William and Prince Harry also did not make it to Balmoral in time to see their grandmother before she passed away.
