It is said that Prince Philip summoned Charles to the hospital only weeks before his death to “brief him” on his duties as the family’s next patriarch.

During the Duke of Edinburgh’s month-long hospital stay, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, paid him a visit.

It was more than a family get-together when Prince Charles traveled 200 miles from Highgrove in Gloucestershire to visit his ailing father in a London hospital in February.

It was a crucial meeting, given that visitors to the private King Edward VII’s hospital were only allowed to see patients under “exceptional circumstances.”

This private talk obviously fell into that category, as the future king emerged clearly irritated and preoccupied after their 30-minute conversation.

Charles was pictured leaving the hospital in tears, clearly moved.

The frail duke summoned Charles to the hospital and informed him of three crucial items during a bedside talk.

Philip advised the eldest of his four children to look after the Queen, explained how to lead the family after his passing, and shared his wish to die in his own bed at Windsor Castle, where he and the queen had been sheltering during the Covid pandemic, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The royal biographer Robert Jobson wrote, “This heart-to-heart marked not just the ending of a long and successful era, a changing of the guard, but a much-changed relationship between father and son, too.”

During an interview on ITV’s Lorraine, Arthur Edwards, the Sun’s photographer, claimed that the duke “made all the big decisions” and told his son on what would happen next.

“Can you imagine that conversation in the hospital three weeks before, when he was summoned by Prince Philip to come?

“It must have been a lot of plain speaking there, what he was expected to do, arrangements for the funeral.

“I think the Duke knew he was on the last leg and he was briefing his son – ‘This is what you’ve got to do son’.”

It had been an intense meeting, one in which Philip, it was thought, expressed his last wishes to his eldest son.

The Duke, who had been the family’s leader for as long as anyone could recall, was actually relinquishing his role and bowing out.

It was now Charles’ turn to step up to the plate and assume control of the first family.

For the family, Charles spoke first, praising his “dear Papa” for his “most remarkable, devoted service to the Queen, to my family and to the country”

“My father, for I suppose the last 70 years, has given the most remarkable devoted service to the queen, to my family, to the country and also to the whole of the Commonwealth,” Charles said to reporters while wearing a black mourning necktie.

“My dear Papa was a very special person who above all else would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him.

“And from that point of view we are, my family, deeply grateful for all that. It will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time.

“As you can imagine, my family and I miss my father enormously.”

As the Prince of Wales saw the hundreds of cards, roses, messages, and pictures left by the public at Marlborough House to honor his father, he became more emotional.