According to Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon — or in the morning Canadian time.
"The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow," the palace's website said.
The news came after palace officials issued a statement earlier in the day saying the Queen had been put under "medical supervision" at Balmoral in Scotland as her doctors were "concerned for Her Majesty's health." All of the senior members of the royal family quickly travelled to be by her side.
Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, along with his wife, Camilla, and sister, Princess Anne, were with the Queen at Balmoral Castle, her summer residence in Scotland. Other members of the royal family, including Charles' sons, Princes William and Harry, were said to be en route.
The Queen had increasingly handed over duties to Charles and other members of the Royal Family in recent months as she recovered from a bout of COVID-19, began using a cane and struggled to get around.
The Queen and all Commonwealth nations had been celebrating a historic milestone: 2022 marked the monarch's Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the throne. But the Queen made only a few brief appearances at events in her honour to mark the anniversary in June, citing mobility issues and discomfort.
She matched another historical milestone in 2012 by becoming the second monarch to celebrate a diamond jubilee, and made history alone in 2015 when she succeeded her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning monarch in Canadian and Commonwealth history.
Her Majesty's connection to Canada early in her life. In 1939, Princess Elizabeth was reportedly the first British royal to make a transatlantic phone call: the recipients were her parents, then the Duke and Duchess of York, who were on a North American tour.
In 1951, the princess spent almost five weeks in Canada, filling in for her ailing father, George VI. With an action-packed schedule, the princess and husband Prince Philip crossed the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including a side trip to Washington, D.C., greeted all the way by rapturous crowds. The royal pair square-danced, attended a hockey game and accepted countless bouquets.
After her father died in 1952, the 21-year-old princess declared in her coming-of-age broadcast from South Africa that she was making “a solemn act of dedication” and spoke of the Commonwealth countries as her “home.”
“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be short or long, shall be devoted to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she said.
In 1957, Elizabeth, now Queen, opened the 23rd session of Parliament in Ottawa. Unfortunately it was not one of her better performances: one observer described her as looking “like Anne Boleyn at the scaffold.”
In a break with tradition, her speech was televised live. This was one of the innovations sponsored by Philip in his attempts to modernize the monarchy. Some might argue in doing so he opened Pandora’s box, showing the royals were just like ordinary folks.
Many other visits followed, the last one in 2010. Indeed, she has touched down in every province and territory — at least a six times in Saskatchewan, the last in 2005, 20 times in Canada overall, and several times to Moose Jaw — and her last trip marked the centennial of the founding of the Royal Canadian Navy. Not bad when you consider she was then 84, an age by which most people have long retired.
The Queen announced the death of her "beloved husband" Philip at the age of 99 with "deep sorrow" on April 9, 2021.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926. Her son Charles will now become King of the Commonwealth and King of Canada.
The Queen is dead! Long live the King!
With files from CBS, the National Post and Canadian Press