THE late Queen was still her incredible self in the lead up to her death, a royal expert who met Her Majesty a massive 40 times has revealed.

Queen Elizabeth died “peacefully” on September 8, 2022 aged 96 – with her final days spent having fun at Balmoral with family.

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The Queen was still her incredible self in the lead up to her death, an expert claims
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The Queen was still her incredible self in the lead up to her death, an expert claimsCredit: Getty

Her Majesty died in September 2022 aged 96
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Her Majesty died in September 2022 aged 96Credit: Getty

Royal expert Hugo Vickers said he met the Queen 40 times
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Royal expert Hugo Vickers said he met the Queen 40 timesCredit: Getty
And in the months leading up to her death, the Monarch was the same she always had been, an expert says.

Royal historian and biographer Hugo Vickers says he’s met the Queen 40 times between 1968 and 2022 and still remembers the first time like it was yesterday.

He also remembers the last just as vividly.

Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, Hugo said: “I met the Queen 40 times between 1968 and 2022.

“The last time I saw her I was allowed to go and visit her in her opening of Windsor Castle in June of the the year she died.

“Now that was very special, I spent 15 minutes with her – she was firing on all cylinders, chatting away.

“We talked a lot about the fire restorarion and things to do with Windsor and St George’s Chapel and she was amazing.”

Hugo went on to relay the first time he met the Queen, when he was just a boy.

The expert told our Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson: “First time, when I was at school I used to show tourists around St George’s Chapel at Windsor on Sunday afternoons – it was open in those days.

“And one afternoon I was planted on a door where they were actually building the little tomb house for where the King and Queen Mother and where the Queen and Prince Philip are buried.
Prince Andrew needs to be kicked out of Royal Lodge – I’m sorry the Queen didn’t sort him before she died
“There was a construction around a wooden door and the Queen just came around the corner and there she was. And then the Queen Mother – I got two of them in the same day.”

Hugo also told The Sun what Meghan Markle did to the late Queen was “unforgivable”.

When asked what did he think had been the biggest crisis in the Royal Family over the past 50 years, the expert initially pointed to the death of Diana.

Hugo said: “Well, 50 years doesn’t take in the abdication, so I suppose the death of Diana in 1997 was the big crisis point.

“But, at the risk of being controversial, will the arrival of Meghan Markle prove to be a bigger one in the long run? Who knows.”

I spent 15 minutes with her – she was firing on all cylinders, chatting away.

Hugo Vickers

Picking up on the theme, Matt agreed adding the time between the arrival of the Duchess of Sussex, everything changing and Meghan and Harry leaving to start a new life in California was a “huge crisis in the Royal Family”.

Hugo said: “I think it’s quite interesting all that because I was in Windsor the day they got married and the popularity and good will towards them was enormous.

“I don’t think it was the press, she succeeded in evading that very, very quickly.

“What I find unforgivable, is the stress she put on the late Queen in the last couple of years of her life.”

It comes after a historic memo claimed the Queen’s final moments were “painless”.

The Queen’s most senior staff member Sir Edward Young has described the moment of her death in an extraordinary book.

The devoted private secretary: “Very peaceful. In her sleep. Slipped away. Old age. She wouldn’t have been aware of anything. No pain.”