Suddenly, one of the great plot lines of our island story peters out. What will replace it? For the best part of 20 years the media, not just in Britain but across the world, have been preparing discreetly for the death of the Queen, yet she still contrived to take us royal watchers by surprise.
There she was, on Tuesday, smiling and extending a hand to Liz Truss, her 15th prime minister, and dutifully enduring separate 40-minute conversations with both Truss and her predecessor, Boris Johnson, in her living room at Balmoral. She was looking perhaps a little frailer than we were used to and there were marks of a cannula, but otherwise no indication of how close to death she was. Duty still prevailed until Wednesday’s cancellation of a privy council meeting. Working to the end.
