A week before Liz Truss' resignation, King Charles greeted the prime minister by muttering 'Back again? Dear oh dear'

• King Charles greeted Liz Truss with an unenthusiastic message at their first weekly audience.
• "Back again? Dear oh dear," Charles said to Truss just one week before she resigned from her role.

Just one week before UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned from her role, King Charles greeted her at their first weekly audience with an unenthusiastic message.

After shaking hands, Charles asked Truss: "Back again?"

"It's a great pleasure," Truss responded.

"Dear oh dear," Charles muttered.

While that was not the first time the two leaders met, it was the first of what was supposed to be a weekly audience between the pair.

Truss announced her resignation on Thursday just six weeks after taking office amid an economic crisis spurred by a series of policy reversals made by her government.

In her resignation letter, Truss said she'd informed Charles of her decision to step down: "I have therefore spoken to His Majesty The King to notify him that I am resigning as Leader of the Conservative Party."

She stepped down only 42 days after King Charles took the throne on September 8 following Queen Elizabeth II's death, making Truss the first prime minister of his reign.

It marked the first time in modern British history when the new prime minister and monarch assumed their roles days apart.

Charles and Truss met for the first time in an official capacity on September 9. Video footage shared by the BBC showed the king greeting the prime minister, who offered her condolence following the death of his mother.

"You're very kind," Charles told her. "It's the moment I've been dreading."

Truss said she will leave her role as prime minister as soon as a successor is named, which should happen within a week.

Like Truss, her successor will be expected to carry out weekly audiences with Charles, a protocol that was also followed by Queen Elizabeth. Over her 70-year reign, the Queen worked with 15 prime ministers, her first being Winston Churchill, who served twice between 1940 and 1945 and then from 1951 to 1955.

She and Churchill held a close relationship, as Insider previously reported. He would tutor the Queen, who was 25 when she ascended the throne, on the constitutional monarchy and the intricacies of the political parties.

Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.