Former US President George W. Bush's journalist daughter Jenna Bush Hager said that she had a "joyful" dinner with King Charles III in Scotland the night before Queen Elizabeth II died.
"We had a wonderful evening filled with conversation that felt joyful," Bush Hager told NBC's "Today" show this week about her dinner with the king on September 7 — the last night he would be known as Prince Charles.
"It was a lovely meal," she added
Bush Hager, a "Today" show co-host, said that she believed that his mother's death the next day at the age of 96 came as a "surprise" to the royal family.
Bush Hager was in town to interview Charles' wife, Camilla — the queen consort who was then known as the Duchess of Cornwall — about her book club in the United Kingdom on September 8.
"It was going to be her only interview with an American press," Bush Hager said, explaining she was supposed to have dinner with Camilla on September 7, but Camilla's flight on British Airways got delayed so she dined with Charles instead.
"He said my darling wife is so sad [that she could not be there]," Bush Hager recalled.
Bush Hager recounted how the next day she witnessed "living history" when Charles and Camilla got the phone call about the ill queen and rushed off to Balmoral Castle, causing Bush Hager's interview with Camilla to be postponed.
"At 12:30 we heard sort of running up and down the halls and it was her team and his team," Bush Hager said, noting, "They came in, 'they said can you please be quiet, there's a call.' We were right by then Prince Charles, now King Charles III's office."
Bush Hager said she then heard the sound of a helicopter and she was told the interview had been put off.
"They said the queen is ill and they [Charles and Camilla] have gone and rushed off to be with her," said Bush Hager.
Queen Elizabeth II's death capped an unprecedented reign on the British throne.
