
The Queen’s death certificate reveals her time of death was 3:10pm, meaning many royals weren’t there, including Harry who was on on a flight from Luton Airport that took off at 5.35pm. The monarch’s death was officially announced at 6.30pm, with the Duke of Sussex’s plane landing in Aberdeen at 6.46pm.
As Harry was still travelling when the devastating news broke he has since claimed he only found out his grandmother had died after checking the internet while on the plane. He wrote in his book that he had been thinking on the plane about the last time he was with his grandmother and what they had been talking about – he then got a notification on his phone.
“When the plane started to descend I saw that my phone lit up,” he said. “It was a message from Meg: ‘Call me when you get this.’ I looked at the BBC website. My grandmother had died. My father was King.” He went on to reveal how when he finally did make it to Balmoral, Princess Anne led him upstairs to “Granny’s bedroom” so he could pay his respects. He also lamented the fact he never got to see his mum, Princess Diana, after she died in a car crash in 1997 when he was just 12.
The Sussexes stepped down as working royals in March 2020 before relocating to the California in the US that summer. Since their move, the pair’s relationship with the rest of the Firm has become increasingly more fractured, particularly after their interview with Oprah Winfrey, the release of Spare as well as Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Netflix documentary.