Queen Elizabeth II was battling bone cancer before her death, according to a new book.
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson describes, in his new memoir, “Unleashed,” his final meeting with the late monarch, who passed away on September 8, 2022, at 96.
In an excerpt obtained by the Daily Mail and published on September 28, Johnson states, “I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that at any time she could enter a sharp decline.”
Johnson adds that the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young, told him, “She’s gone down quite a bit over the summer,” before the ex-PM began his last audience as prime minister with her.
“Unleashed” hits bookstore shelves in the UK on October 10 and will be released in the US on October 22.
Boris is not the first to discuss the Queen’s alleged cancer struggle.
Royal reporter Robert Jobson wrote his book “Catherine, the Princess of Wales: A Biography of the Future Queen,” that near the end of her life Elizabeth felt “terribly frail” from a battle with myeloma, a kind of bone marrow cancer.
The queen’s health “deteriorated rapidly” in the three months after her June 2022 Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which marked her 70th year on the throne.
“She struggled terribly with her eyesight and had low vision,” Jobson was told. “She even had difficulty lifting a full teapot to pour into her cup.”
A source close to the late Queen said, “Her Majesty could hardly see and just didn’t have the strength.
“She would get terribly frustrated as she hated causing a mess, pouring it over the tray,” the source added. “She asked for a smaller pot and would get frustrated when the staff forgot and brought the big one.”
Before the jubilee, Elizabeth’s strength was already waning. But, according to Jobson, despite doctors advising rest, the long-serving monarch was determined in her official position as head of state to “put her people first” and “not to disappoint them” during the festivities.
King Charles, then Prince Charles, also allegedly persuaded the Queen, “for the sake of history” to appear on the famous Buckingham Palace balcony at the finale of the jubilee to acknowledge the crowds who had turned out.
“The final appearance took real courage,” Jobson wrote, given that she was in “constant pain” because of her alleged cancer battle. It was the last time she would be seen on the balcony, a spot indelibly associated with the British royal family.
“Queen Elizabeth knew she was dying,” Jobson wrote, adding her disease depleted her energy and caused her to lose a dramatic amount of weight in her final years.
The Queen passed away in Scotland at her beloved Balmoral Castle. She “wouldn’t have been aware of anything” and suffered “no pain,” her private secretary reportedly said in a memo afterward.
Princess Anne, also known as The Princess Royal, was at her mother’s bedside when she passed. King Charles had been with her earlier in the day but reportedly went out to pick mushrooms at his nearby Scottish residence Birkhall “to clear his head.”
Charles was driving back to Balmoral when he got the call. Upon picking up the phone, he was addressed as “Your Majesty” and pulled off the road, knowing from those two words that his mother had died.
