Liz Truss thought "Why me? Why now?" when Queen Elizabeth died on her second day of being Prime Minister.
The ex-PM, who lasted just 49 days in office after crashing the economy, admitted it was out of her "comfort zone" and that other Prime Ministers "might have been better suited to mark this historic moment with soaring rhetoric and statesmanship".
Only days after she became PM, Ms Truss paid tribute to the Queen after she died aged 96 on the steps of Downing Street, calling her "a personal inspiration to me, and many Britons". Ms Truss, for the first time has now revealed the details of the momentous period in her new book Ten Years to Save the West, an extract of which has been printed in the Daily Mail.
The ex-Tory leader said the "first real indication" she had that the Queen was close to dying was on the night of Wednesday 7 September 2022, the day after she'd become Prime Minister. "My new ministers were set to be formally sworn into office, with the Queen joining remotely by video link — but just before the meeting, word reached us that Her Majesty wouldn't be available," she said.
"That's when the machine kicked into action. My black mourning dress was fetched from my house in Greenwich, South London. Frantic phone calls took place with Buckingham Palace. I started to think about what on earth I was going to say if the unthinkable happened.
"On Thursday, we received the solemn news that the Queen had died peacefully at Balmoral. To be told this on only my second full day as Prime Minister felt utterly unreal. In a state of shock, I found myself thinking: 'Why me? Why now?'"
Ms Truss said she met with King Charles the following day for her first audience with him at Buckingham Palace. "I felt a slightly bizarre camaraderie between us, with both starting out in our new roles and navigating unfamiliar territory."
She said she spent her first weekend as PM watching TV as the Queen's coffin left Balmoral to process to Edinburgh. "Suddenly overwhelmed by the emotion of it all, I broke down into floods of tears on the sofa," she said.
Ms Truss, who had only one one-on-one audience with the Queen as PM, also revealed the final words Her Majesty said to her were "Pace Yourself". She added: "Maybe I should have listened."
Describing her final meeting with the Queen at Balmoral, Ms Truss wrote: "Although noticeably frailer than she had been a year ago, the Queen was determined to carry out her constitutional duty of appointing her new Prime Minister in person —as she'd done for each of my 13 predecessors — and of accepting the resignation of the last.
"That Tuesday, September 6, 2022, she was standing up as she greeted me in her drawing room. I was told she'd made a special effort to do so, but she gave no hint of discomfort throughout our discussion.
"This was only my second one-on-one audience with her. On the previous occasion, after I'd been removed from a different job in the Government, she'd remarked that being a woman in politics was tough.
"For about 20 minutes, we discussed politics — and it was clear she was completely attuned to everything that was happening, as well as being typically sharp and witty."