September 8, 2022

Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II dies at Balmoral; Charles III succeeds her

Charles was already King for more than three hours before the public was told his mother had died.

15:10 at Balmoral

Earlier on 8 September 2022, Buckingham Palace had announced that Elizabeth II's doctors were concerned for her health and had recommended medical supervision at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire.

She died there that afternoon at 15:10 BST, aged 96. Her death certificate, published later, recorded old age as the cause.

Princess Anne registered the death and was identified on the certificate as the informant.

The three-hour gap before the announcement

Buckingham Palace announced the death publicly at approximately 18:30 — more than three hours after the time recorded on the certificate.

Charles III had been King for the whole of that interval. Succession in the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms was immediate and automatic; it did not wait for the Accession Council's proclamation two days later, or for the 2023 coronation.

Charles issued his first public statement as King on 8 September, mourning his mother as both sovereign and parent.

What the listing folds in from later dates

Two days before her death, the Queen had performed her final major constitutional duty at Balmoral by appointing Liz Truss prime minister. Her reign had run 70 years and 214 days.

The Edinburgh ceremonies, the London lying-in-state and its queues, the state funeral and the Windsor burial all happened on later dates and are frequently narrated as though they belonged to 8 September.

The often-quoted cost figure is mis-scoped the same way: the Treasury's estimate of £161.743 million covered the funeral and related events across the entire mourning period, including security and ceremonies in Scotland, London and Windsor.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The date, place, time and certified cause are documented. No more specific underlying medical diagnosis was disclosed on the death certificate, so claims attributing her death or decline to another illness remain unverified.