The late Queen Elizabeth II had a type of bone most cancers in her remaining years, former U.Okay. prime minister Boris Johnson has controversially claimed in his memoir.
In an extract from Unleashed, due out later this month and serialized by the Each day Mail, Johnson broke royal protocol and shared that the monarch was affected by bone most cancers earlier than she died in 2022.
He wrote that two days earlier than the Queen’s Sept. 8, 2022, demise, he travelled to Balmoral Citadel in Scotland to formally resign from his publish, as is customary. The Queen appointed Liz Truss to be the U.Okay.’s new prime minister.
Her official reason for demise was recorded as “outdated age” however Johnson mentioned she had bone most cancers and knew “all summer season that she was going.”
“Edward Younger, her non-public secretary, tried to arrange me,” Johnson wrote. “I had identified for a yr or extra that she had a type of bone most cancers, and her medical doctors had been apprehensive that at any time she might enter a pointy decline.
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“‘She’s gone down fairly a bit over the summer season,’ he mentioned. After which the footman knocked and confirmed me into Her Majesty’s drawing room.”
FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II waits within the Drawing Room earlier than receiving Liz Truss for an viewers at Balmoral, in Scotland on Sept. 6, 2022, the place Truss was invited to change into prime minister and type a brand new authorities.
Jane Barlow/Pool Photograph through AP, File
Johnson wrote that in their remaining go to, the Queen appeared “pale and extra stooped, and she or he had darkish bruising on her palms and wrists, most likely from drips or injections.”
Nonetheless, he additionally wrote that she remained mentally sharp and described her brilliant smile.
“However her thoughts—as Edward had additionally mentioned—was utterly unimpaired by her sickness, and every now and then in our dialog she nonetheless flashed that nice white smile in its sudden mood-lifting magnificence.”
He additionally wrote that Elizabeth shared with him one final “essential” piece of recommendation through the go to.
“‘There’s no level in bitterness,’ she mentioned, and amen to that. If everybody in politics — and life — might see that as clearly as she did, the world could be a a lot, a lot happier place,” he shared.
FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II after which prime minister Boris Johnson, left, greet visitors at a reception for the International Funding Summit in Windsor Citadel, Windsor, England, on Oct. 19, 2021.
Alastair Grant / The Related Press
Johnson served because the 14th prime minister to carry the place through the queen’s historic 70-year reign.
His admission is more likely to elevate eyebrows at Buckingham Palace, because the Royal Household is notoriously tight-lipped round issues of private well being. The late queen by no means shared non-public medical particulars surrounding her well being with the general public.
Since her passing, nonetheless, the royal protocol has relaxed a bit, particularly this yr as King Charles III and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, have each confronted most cancers diagnoses and shared well being updates with the world.
Neither the King nor the Princess have shared the precise kind of most cancers they had been recognized with, talking extra typically about their progress by remedy and their respective returns to royal duties.
Each Royal Members of the family have mentioned, by aides, that they’re sharing their experiences to boost consciousness.
Buckingham Palace has not commented on the contents of Johnson’s e book.
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