Queen Elizabeth had “no regrets” before her death.
The late monarch died aged 96 at Balmoral on September 8 and the weekend before her death, she hosted Rt Reverend Dr Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, at the castle following his sermon at Braemar and Crathie Parish Church.
Appearing on ABC News, he said: “She said right at the beginning of her time when she was becoming Queen that she was going to ask God for wisdom.
“And that’s something which persisted throughout her life. When I was chatting to her about her faith, she said she had no regrets at all.”
The 68-year-old clergyman had dinner and lunch with the queen, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal – now King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort – on the Sunday before her death.
He revealed she still had her famous sense of humour, and joked about sending him to the Tower of London.
He recalled: “I was stating in the Tower Rooms and she said, ‘Your Queen is sending you to the Tower!’
“And she just smiled at me as she said that – she made sure that I understood that I got the joke rather than it being too serious.”
He was shocked by her “sudden” death, having seen her “so alive” and “engaging”.
He added: “It seemed just astonishing that the woman who had been so vital, so alive, so engaging, should be all of a sudden, dead and away from us”
Meanwhile, he said despite her age and being visibly frail, she was a “different kind of person” when she started talking, and “knew everything” about her guests.
He described has “somebody whose memory was exceptional, somebody who knew everything about you, so she’d done her homework”.