He worked as her footman for a decade and is one of the few people who knew what the Queen was really like away from the glare of public life.
Paul Burrell, 64, started working at Buckingham Palace at the age of 18, and a year later became the Queen’s personal footman – a privileged position he would go on to hold for a decade before moving to the service of the late Princess Diana.
Paul tells Closer, “The Queen’s tremendous sacrifice and her sense of duty to the country has been exemplary. She’s one of the greatest women to have ever lived – even if you’re not a monarchist, you can’t deny that. And through everything that divided the nation recently, and the royal rifts, all of us were very much ‘Team Queen’.
“The continuity, the stability and the thread which she’s woven throughout all of our lives has been cut. Nothing will be the same now.”
Reflecting on his memories of such a remarkable Queen of England, Paul poignantly calls her passing, “the end of an era”.
“Most of us will never again see a Queen on the throne, as Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince George in turn will lead the royal family.
“Queen Elizabeth was a one-off – her reign has just been incredible. If you had asked her what her legacy would be, she would have said leaving the family in fine form – she would have used that horse-racing analogy.”
But Paul believes that her “greatest legacy” will be to bring her family together as he hopes for a thawing of icy relations between her feuding grandsons, Prince Harry and Prince William, who have been at war since Harry stepped down from Royal duties to forge a new life Stateside with wife Meghan Markle and their young children. Harry flew in to Balmoral shortly after news of the Queen’s death was announced, but was pictured leaving early the next morning.
“I sincerely hope that can happen – that Her Majesty’s greatest legacy will be to have reunited her family at this very emotionally difficult time and help them to work through their differences and forge some kind of path for the future.”
The Queen’s sense of duty had remained resolute and admirable until the very end, as she continued to carry out royal appointments with the aid of a stick – swearing in new Prime Minister Liz Truss just two days before she died.
Paul says, “Even after Prince Philip passed away last year, she wanted to go out there and meet the public. She didn’t want to shy away and go quiet. Her Majesty didn’t want to scale down her engagements; she wanted the people to see her.”
He adds that after sacrificing so much to her country and duty, losing her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, in April last year was “the beginning of the end” for the Queen.
“When someone loses their life partner they will know life is never the same, and for the Queen, her life hadn’t ever been the same. She knew that when he passed,” he says.
“It is incredibly sad but she no longer had him to lean on. That was the beginning of the end because he made her laugh, and he was her soulmate.”
Paul reveals how, over the past few years and amid the Queen’s recent health battles, Prince Charles, 73 – now King Charles III – had chaired a series of “bridge meetings” so he and the royal team could prepare for how the monarchy will proceed immediately after her death.
Paul explains, “The Queen didn’t attend. But she had been handing over a lot of paperwork because she knew Charles would need to know how to run the royal estates.
“There’ll be a period of time to pay respects before Charles is crowned at Westminster Abbey, but he will have been handed her ‘keys’ and taken over duties immediately.
“They are a very wealthy family and the Queen will leave a massive fortune in her will, along with the estates of Sandringham and Balmoral, which belong to her. All of that will be passed on the way the Queen wanted it passed on. I suspect Harry is going to miss out on his inheritance – I think something will be left to Harry, but it won’t be great.”
On the plans for her funeral, Paul confirmed what was announced last week, that the Queen’s coffin will lie in state at Westminster Abbey. “The Queen will be laid to rest in a public place so the nation can pay their respects. There will be a period of mourning for the family called ‘court mourning’, usually around two weeks, when all of the members of the royal family will wear black and there won’t be any public duties until after that time.
“Then you will see King Charles wearing a black arm band in respect for his mother. She would have been so proud to see him crowned King.”