Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has broken royal protocol and claimed in his memoir, due to hit shelves on October 10, that Queen Elizabeth II suffered from bone cancer before her death, CNN reports.
Johnson officially steps down just two days before Elizabeth II ‘s death in September 2022. In the years since the monarch’s death, there has been fierce speculation about what exactly she died of.
“I had known for a year or more that she had a form of bone cancer, and her doctors were worried that it could get worse at any moment,” he wrote in the excerpt. Johnson’s account is the first public indication from a former senior government official of what may have been the cause of the Queen’s death. Her death certificate listed her as “old age”.
Johnson is not the first prime minister to mention Queen Elizabeth II in his autobiography. Before him, former British leaders Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron did it. However, they did not disclose such precise details of the monarch’s life. Buckingham Palace does not have a policy of commenting on published books about the royal family, and therefore neither confirms nor denies Johnson’s claims.
Johnson’s account is the first public indication from a former senior government official of what may have been the cause of the Queen’s death. Nor is he the first prime minister to publish a memoir about his reign and interactions with the late Queen. Former British leaders Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have all published autobiographies, but without sharing vivid details like Johnson’s.
Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on published books about the royal family, and therefore did not confirm or deny Johnson’s claims.
