Three full weeks after the news broke that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II had passed away at Balmoral Castle, her royal residence in Scotland where she spends her traditional summer retreat in the Scottish Highlands, a cause of death has been released for Her Majesty.
While it seems that an autopsy was unsurprisingly not conducted on Queen Elizabeth’s body, a death certificate was released today confirming that Her Majesty the Queen died of “old age” at 3:10 pm (1410 GMT) on September 8th. The document shows that Queen Elizabeth passed away approximately three-and-a-half hours before the news was broken to the world.
The 96-year-old served as the longest-serving monarch in British history, where she became head of state in 1952, and went on to serve in that position for 70 years.
Queen Elizabeth’s death certificate was released by the National Records of Scotland and shows that the monarch’s passing was registered on the 16th of September by Her Majesty’s only daughter, Princess Anne. In a statement released by Buckingham Palace on September 13th, Anne confirmed that she remained steadfast by her mother’s side during the final 24 hours of the monarch’s life.
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Listed as the place of death on the certificate is “Balmoral Castle,” with Queen Elizabeth’s “usual residence” listed as Windsor Castle. Also featured on the document is the name of Elizabeth’s late husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the full names of her father king George VI, and mother queen Elizabeth.
The section of the death certificate marked “occupation” reads, “Her Majesty The Queen.”
Queen Elizabeth’s passing was only registered on a death certificate because she ultimately passed away in Scotland. Has the 96-year-old monarch died in England, such documentation would not exist, as the law requires registration of deaths only applies to sovereign subjects. However, Scotland, which maintains a separate legal system from England and Wales, law dictates that “the death of every person” is to be registered.
The “old age” cause of death may help to bring an end to speculations that the Queen was suffering from a specific malady or illness during her final days.
See full reporting on the matter from the New York Times here.
Featured image via Flickr/Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, under Creative Commons license 2.0
