Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might have broken royal protocol by revealing in his forthcoming memoir that Queen Elizabeth II was battling bone cancer prior to her death. The memoir, titled Unleashed, is set to be released on October 10 and has been serialized in the Daily Mail.
Reflecting on the monarch’s last days at Balmoral in Scotland, where she passed away on September 8, 2022, Johnson recalls his awareness of her condition.He wrote, “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,”
In a description of their last meeting on September 6, 2022, Johnson paints a picture of the queen as physically frail yet mentally resilient. “But her mind … was completely unimpaired … she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty,” he wrote, emphasising her determination to fulfill her royal duties despite her illness.
Johnson noted that she was aware of her impending fate but remained steadfast in her role, determined to oversee a “peaceful and orderly transition” of power to his successor, Liz Truss.
Buckingham Palace has remained silent on Johnson’s claims, opting not to comment on the queen’s health or the specifics surrounding her passing. Officially, her cause of death was listed as old age, maintaining the royal family’s longstanding tradition of privacy concerning health matters.
The current monarch King Charles III has been open about his own health struggles, publicly disclosing his diagnosis of cancer following treatment for benign prostate enlargement. While the palace has not provided detailed information on the type of cancer he is facing, the transparency marks a significant shift from the practices upheld during his mother’s reign.
Princess Kate also shared her own cancer diagnosis earlier this year, however refrained from going into specifics of her diagnosis.