September 8 marked the third anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death, with everyone from Prince William and Princess Kate to Prince Harry marking the day in their own ways. The late Queen, who died in 2022 at the age of 96, was suffering from bone cancer, according to multiple reports. But in his new memoir, The Royal Insider, former royal butler and footman Paul Burrell reveals that Queen Elizabeth allegedly had one request for her doctors after hearing about her prognosis.
In an excerpt from the book serialized in the Daily Mail, Burrell writes that Queen Elizabeth received her cancer diagnosis “just a few months” after Prince Philip died in April 2021. “It was devastating for her so soon after losing him,” he notes in the book. She didn’t tell anyone outside of her “circle of trust,” which included “her pages, her footmen and her dressers.”
“As far as the family was concerned everything was fine, but the doctors’ prognosis gave her only until Christmas,” Burrell continues. “The Queen’s response was, ‘Well, that’s a shame, because next year is my Platinum Jubilee year and I’d quite like to have seen that. Can you keep me alive for that?'” The 2022 milestone marked 70 years on the throne for the late Queen and was the first-ever Platinum Jubilee for a British monarch.
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The late Queen is seen at Trooping the Colour in June 2022 during her Platinum Jubilee.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Queen Elizabeth viewed commemorative items from past Jubilees in February 2022.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Burrell writes that to keep her health up, the late Queen “endured blood transfusions and scrupulously followed doctors’ orders, giving up her much-loved gin and tonics, gin and Dubonnets and martinis.” Instead, she swapped alcohol for “apple juice (and tomato juice on a Sunday as a treat) to help extend her life.”
Fortunately, Queen Elizabeth did live to see her Platinum Jubilee, although she was forced to miss some events, like her beloved Epsom Derby. While doctors “kept her alive to witness this landmark in her reign,” the former footman to Queen Elizabeth notes that the late monarch “knew through it all that she was dying”
Members of the Royal Family didn’t know the extent of Queen Elizabeth’s health issues until “the final few months,” Burrell writes in his new book. Although “she had intentionally kept them out of the loop as she didn’t want them to worry,” there was another reason for the late Queen to keep her cancer diagnosis a secret.
“She was also concerned that her illness might open the door to a regency,” Burrell claims. “This was abhorrent to her. She wanted to rule to the end and definitely did not want to be a sick Queen with a regent ruling.”
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Queen Elizabeth II
