The feeling and public expression of grief and sorrow following the death of Queen Elizabeth on September 8, 2022 has caught much of the British population off guard. It was inescapable that, at the age of 96, the Queen was nearing the end of her life. As retired palliative care doctor and author Kathryn Mannix tweeted, she had likely been dying for some time.
However, photographs of her meeting both the outgoing and incoming prime ministers just 48 hours prior meant that the announcement that she had died was unforeseen. Her passing is in that category of death in old age that end-of-life specialist Diana Teggi defines as expected but still sudden, and somewhat of a shock.
The coverage of the Queen’s death in the last week reflects how death is increasingly “spectacularised”, to use a term coined by death studies sociologist Michael Hviid Jacobsen.
