And then, yesterday afternoon, it happened: Buckingham Palace announced she had passed away.
Charles, 73, now King Charles III, has been next in line to the throne for seven decades - by a distance the longest wait in the history of the British monarchy. Neither he nor his courtiers have ever wished to speak publicly about the moment it is over.
The prospect of the Queen's death has always been considered a matter of great private sadness. "He never wanted to think about accession because it meant the death of his mother," a former aide said yesterday.
But with the Queen's doctors voicing concern for her health and her other children and grandchildren scrambling to be with her, the role of heir that has defined Charles's life since the age of three, when his mother acceded to the throne in 1952, appeared to be drawing nearer.
A new, inevitably shorter, chapter of Charles's life will begin. Becoming monarch of the UK and 14 Commonwealth realms from Canada to Australia will allow him to answer a question that has followed him for decades: after a lifetime of outspoken interventions in public life, what kind of king will he be? In the immediate days he faces the twin challenges of personal bereavement and leading the nation in mourning.
"He will be focused on the personal and the family, but for the palaces it will be a question of [choosing] the right things to say and do that lead the nation in mourning but also establish the first steps of the new reign," said another former aide.
Charles, they added, had a "deep emotional facility" with bereaved people, which they predicted would serve him and the country well in any period of mourning.
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