In the final piece of the widely-discussed memoir, former royal butler Paul Burrell reflects on Queen Elizabeth’s last days and a poignant moment visiting her grave at Windsor.

My chance to know the Queen came from a simple, spontaneous smile. I had just begun working as a footman and was assisting at one of her traditional ‘meet-the-people’ luncheons at Buckingham Palace. I was only 18.

We were always told never to look at the Queen or stare at her: never look her in the eye, always look down.

But that day, she took me by surprise. I was serving another guest, yet I couldn’t look away from her. Suddenly, she locked eyes with me. In that instant, I broke protocol and smiled.

After lunch, the Queen asked the Palace steward who I was and told him what had happened.

He panicked. ‘He’s our newest recruit, Paul,’ he said. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Your Majesty.’

She replied, ‘Oh, that’s quite all right. It’s just that no one ever smiles at me.’

This marked the beginning of a lasting personal connection with the Royal Family. Soon after, when the Queen needed a page, she remembered me. I had left an impression. For the next 11 years, I was by her side.

On September 8, 2022, the world as we knew it changed forever when Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch in history, passed away at the age of 96.

I was granted one final meeting with my beloved queen in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and given the opportunity to thank her for everything.

My dear friend Paul Whybrew, known affectionately at the Palace as Tall Paul because of his imposing stature, said to me: ‘I think you need to come and pay your respects to the Queen.’ Paul and I had served Her Majesty together for many years.

Her funeral had taken place at Westminster Abbey. Afterwards, the coffin was taken to Windsor Castle for a committal service at St George’s Chapel.

So I drove down with my husband, Graham, to Home Park at Windsor Castle, a place I knew very well.

I didn’t need to go via the front gates. Instead I headed for the back entrance – the same one the Queen always used.

The barrier lifted and I drove past Adelaide Cottage where the Waleses were in residence. I could see the lights on in the house. 

Memories came flooding back. Happy days of walking the corgis around their cottage. I thought, I could knock on the door and say hello to William.

We walked up the hill to St George’s Chapel. There is a slab on the floor that reads, ‘George VI, Elizabeth, Elizabeth II, Philip’.

It is hand-carved from black Belgian marble with brass inlays. And I thought, that’s what she’d want. It was something so simple. No fuss. No ornament. No gilding. Just a plain piece of marble.

And then I looked across, and on one side there was a slab for Princess Margaret, who was cremated when she died in 2002.

Choosing to be cremated was a selfless act by Margaret so her big sister, the Queen, could be laid to rest beside Prince Philip inside the crypt. It had been made for four people: King George VI, the Queen Mother and their two daughters. But Margaret sacrificed her place for Philip. So her little urn of ashes is nestled between the King and the Queen.

The King always referred to his family as ‘we four’ – they now rest in peace, together, for ever.

I could feel the tears running down my face as I said to the Queen, ‘Thank you for everything you did for me. You looked after me and protected me. When I was too young to protect myself, you did it.

‘You taught me about people. You taught me about countries. You taught me everything. Etiquette, manners. You taught me the English language.’

Her love never left me until she died. And then I felt the cord cut. It was truly the end of an era. All I do now is to help to preserve her legacy and tell her story.

The Queen had been very poorly during her last days and was mainly bedridden. She was 96 and had refused any more treatment.

It wasn’t long after Prince Philip had died that she was diagnosed with cancer, in the summer of 2021. It was devastating for her so soon after losing him.

Theirs had been a true love story – I saw it on a daily basis. They slept in the same bed – at least, they did during the years I was in service with them, from 1976 to 1987; in later years, due to old age and illness, I understand from various sources that they didn’t – they ate all their meals together and he was the master of her world.

I often found notes in Prince Philip’s spidery handwriting to his wife in which he referred to her as his ‘sweetie pie’, ‘chou-fleur’ or ‘cabbage’. He was her soulmate, her guardian at the gate.

When he died, the Queen did not want him to go to St George’s Chapel to lie at rest. Instead, she said, ‘I’d like him to stay near to me.’

His coffin was placed in the private chapel inside Windsor Castle. And every evening, that lonely figure walked down the carpet of the Grand Corridor to say goodnight to her husband of 74 years.

After her own diagnosis just a few months later, the Queen swore everyone to secrecy. Only her immediate staff were informed: her pages, her footmen and her dressers were included in the circle of trust and did not tell a soul.

As far as the family was concerned everything was fine, but the doctors’ prognosis gave her only until Christmas. The Queen’s response was, ‘Well, that’s a shame, because next year is my Platinum Jubilee year and I’d quite like to have seen that. Can you keep me alive for that?’

She endured blood transfusions and scrupulously followed doctors’ orders, giving up her much-loved gin and tonics, gin and Dubonnets and martinis, and instead having apple juice (and tomato juice on a Sunday as a treat) to help extend her life.

They kept her alive to witness this landmark in her reign, but she knew through it all that she was dying.

Her family were told in the final few months. She had intentionally kept them out of the loop as she didn’t want them to worry.

She was also concerned that her illness might open the door to a regency. This was abhorrent to her. She wanted to rule to the end and definitely did not want to be a sick queen with a regent ruling.

At the very end she had good and bad days. There were some days when she couldn’t get out of bed. But she always made an effort.

Throughout her life, lunch was at 1pm, tea at 5pm and dinner at 8.15pm whenever possible. But she stopped going for meals in the dining room. Instead, she was having trays of food delivered to her room and she was eating very little.

The monarch was fading away in front of the nation’s eyes. Her dresses weren’t fitting properly and she was looking paler and thinner. I think we all knew it was inevitable.

It was poignant for the Queen to die at Balmoral, her favourite home. Most of the household had no idea what had happened that day. Estate workers were going about their business as normal.

Her closest advisers did not want the news to leak out before it was announced officially. 

They wanted to gather the family together first. Princess Anne and Prince Charles were staying nearby. But the rest of the family were elsewhere, so they had to arrange a flight from London to Scotland.

Of course, there has been much discussion about this as it was the plane that famously took off without Prince Harry. Prince William, Prince Edward and his wife, Sophie, and Prince Andrew were seen arriving together on a private plane.

Harry has since claimed that he was not included in their travel arrangements.

Despite the initial plan to wait until everyone was there before the public were informed, they announced her death without him at Balmoral.

An issue arose over Harry’s wife of four years, Meghan Markle, attending Balmoral. This was a sacred family moment where they wanted to grieve as one. They did not see Meghan as one of them. She was not welcome.

Over the previous two years, since January 2020, when Harry and Meghan initiated ‘Megxit’ and stepped away as working Royals, they had blasted the family on many occasions, most notably with their allegations of racism and lack of support from the family around the Duchess’s mental health struggles.

So when the plane was being organised, they were afraid Prince Harry would want to bring Meghan with him.

Even William’s wife, Catherine, stayed in Windsor and was spotted picking up her children from school later that day – thereby sending a message that this was a moment for blood family only.

The family went in one by one to see the Queen in her room in bed.

Her death hit them all hard, but none more so than her eldest son, Prince Charles. He sat in prayer for a few minutes with his mother and his wife, Camilla, and left a changed person. He arrived at Balmoral a prince and departed a king.

It is strange that Charles had been expecting his mother’s death but now it had actually happened, he was left shaken and in tears. He finally realised the enormity and responsibility of what he was about to take on as king.

The household took the role of mourning their beloved Queen very seriously. They did not appreciate the interruption of Prince Harry, who many thought was petulant.

His mother, Diana, had always reminded him of his responsibility and duty, the price he had to pay for such a privileged life. 

She had sacrificed her precious time with her boys in order that they could be part of the Royal Family.

He came through the doors of Balmoral as though he was expecting to be embraced and welcomed back into the fold. And he was sadly disappointed.

He arrived late that night and was met by a total glacial front from his family. Balmoral was an iceberg. He was no longer a working Royal and he was not trusted by the family.

Cold and calculating this might appear, but this is the way the Windsors work. They freeze people out – even their own – to preserve the continuity of the family. 

They will turn against you if you do not follow the party line and do not accept the rules and regulations of the system.

Prince Harry knew those rules well. He had been taught them. He was born into the institution.

That night in September, Harry joined some of his family for a sombre dinner and must have realised the power of the throne had shifted. The atmosphere was arctic. He went to bed early and got up the next morning before anybody else was awake.

But when he went down to breakfast, nothing was ready. Mealtimes are run to a strict timetable and Harry wanted breakfast too early. So he left with his tail between his legs in the early hours of the morning. He didn’t speak to a soul and went back south.

Harry had every right to be there, but the circumstances should have been so different.

Sadly, I believe that if the Queen had died before Harry had met Meghan, it would have been different. He would have still been in the inner circle and enveloped into the family. But Harry had changed and had moved on to a different world.

But regardless of what I think of Prince Harry, you cannot help but feel sorry for him. He had come to pay his respects to his grandmother who adored him and whom he loved.

Harry’s grandmother had desperately wanted him to be happy and to stay within the Royal Family, but now she was no longer there to protect and guide him.

They were all too busy to think about Harry’s pain. There was no one there for him. No one to embrace him or understand how he was feeling. It must have been a strange and difficult time for him. 

Despite everything, I still wish Harry and Meghan happiness always. If Harry’s marriage were to flounder – which I believe may be inevitable – he will return to England to seek refuge.

Everything he knows is in the country of his birth and, once the veil is lifted from his obsession with Meghan, he will want to be back to what and where he knows best – and the King would be delighted to have him back. But I am not sure if William would be equally pleased.

It’s such a shame, as Harry, who was always one of the public’s favourite Royals, could and should have had it all. Instead, he has made a right royal mess.

The Queen’s favourite son is probably feeling the loss of his mother more than most. The Duke of York demands and expects respect for his position and will reprimand anyone who forgets to bow when introduced to him.

The Queen was always there for her son to save him from himself and from his mistakes. When financially strapped, he would always ask her for help. But now she is gone, what next? The future for Prince Andrew looks bleak.

His nephew Prince William sees Andrew as a liability to the Royal Family. He, like his father, is unlikely to take on the expense of running Prince Andrew’s life. When William is king, there will be no space for Andrew.

Despite living together, rumours that Andrew and Fergie will remarry are unfounded. It’s not on the cards.

It may be considered a strange arrangement, and Prince Philip could never understand it. He was heard to say, ‘Didn’t we already pay her off once? Didn’t we have to give her lots of money to go away? And then she comes back again.’

Towards the end of the Queen’s life, Fergie saw an opportunity to open a door into the monarch’s world. The Queen had decided not to have any more corgi puppies. She said, ‘Who’s going to look after them when I’m gone? It’s unfair.’

But Fergie didn’t listen. She and Andrew bought two new puppies, a dorgi (a dachshund-corgi mix) and a corgi, Sandy and Muick, and presented them to the Queen as a gift during lockdown in 2021.

The Queen was not happy. ‘What did I tell you all? I said that I didn’t want any more dogs.’

I have no doubt that Sarah’s actions were well intentioned. She was always kind and thoughtful to everyone around her, and often showered both the family and staff with gifts but, of course, the dogs were then left after the Queen’s death in 2022. They now live with Fergie and Andrew at Royal Lodge.

Elizabeth II will be known as the last of the great monarchs. William will have to be very different.

Pomp and theatre will be shelved. William will strip away much of the formality and become the ‘people’s king’, taking inspiration from his mother.

I hope and believe he will be a force for good. I hope that I am here to cheer ‘Long live King William V!’

• Adapted from The Royal Insider by Paul Burrell (Sphere, £25), to be published September 11. © Paul Burrell 2025. To order a copy for £21.25 (offer valid to 20/09/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.