LONDON — The late Queen Elizabeth II had a form of bone cancer in her final years, Boris Johnson claimed in his memoir.
In an extract from “Unleashed,” due for publication next month, the former prime minister said he had “known for a year or more” that the British monarch “had a form of bone cancer” when he resigned in September 2022, just two days before her death.
It marks the first time a senior British politician has spoken about her possible cause of death, which was officially listed as “old age” on her death certificate.
The revelation is highly unusual in British public life. The queen’s health was a closely-guarded secret during her reign, and information about meetings between the prime minister and monarch are usually kept confidential.
Recalling his final meeting with Queen Elizabeth, Johnson said she “seemed pale and more stooped, and she had dark bruising on her hands and wrists, probably from drips or injections.”
But, he said, the monarch’s mood was “completely unimpaired by her illness, and from time to time in our conversation she still flashed that great white smile in its sudden mood-lifting beauty.”
He said the late queen knew “all summer that she was going, but was determined to hang on and do her last duty” by seeing the transfer of power from Johnson to his successor Liz Truss.
Johnson said in his memoir that the queen sometimes told him information before he knew it, including an incident in which a Royal Air Force jet fell off an aircraft carrier.
It was “doubly embarrassing” to be told the details by the queen, he said.
