Queen Elizabeth II is currently receiving medical care as Buckingham Palace has confirmed that it’s “concerned” about her health. The situation is rapidly developing, with strong indications that this is a serious incident. A measure of how serious things are is that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have dropped everything and are currently traveling to Scotland to be with the rest of the Royal Family at Balmoral.
UPDATE: BBC news has confirmed that while Prince Harry has now arrived in Balmoral, Meghan will remain in London.
They will join the Queen’s four children, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William.
The BBC has now suspended all regular programming and news presenters have donned black ties, which is a strong indication that we should prepare for bad news later this afternoon.
Harry and Meghan’s movements are always huge news in their own right and the pair’s behavior will be closely scrutinized over the next weeks. Harry stepping down as a senior member of the Royal Family in 2020 was said to have “saddened” the Queen, so we can expect the media to zero in more closely than ever before on Harry and Meghan.
If the Queen dies, the United Kingdom will enter a period of public mourning not seen since the untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. It’s also worth remembering that the Queen has reigned for so long that for the vast majority of people have no memory of any other monarch, so her death will cause an unprecedented outpouring of emotion and will dominate the news for months to come.
More on this as we hear it.