Biography reveals stoic Queen in final days

The Queen knew she had limited time left and said the weekend before her death that she had ‘no regrets’.

According to the royal biography, Queen Elizabeth had been determined to keep busy after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in April last year. Picture: Wireimage

The Queen knew she had limited time left and said on the weekend before her death that she had “no regrets”, a book has claimed.

According to the royal biography, Queen Elizabeth had been determined to keep busy after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in April last year, which had helped her cope with her loss.

But when doctors advised her to take things easier later in the year, she was said to have conceded: “I’ve got to be sensible.” The biography, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, written by Gyles Brandreth and serialised in the Daily Mail, also reveals that the Queen was decisive when she “fired” the Duke of York after the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

When Prince Andrew told her his full account of the saga involving his friendship with the paedophile financier, she is said to have responded: “Intriguing.”

She died aged 96 at 3.10pm on September 8 at Balmoral Castle, two days after she had welcomed her 15th prime minister, Liz Truss.

According to the Right Rev Dr Iain Greenshields, moderator of the Church of Scotland, she was in “fantastic form” on the weekend before she died.

He told Brandreth that she was “so alive and engaging”, and that they had spoken about her childhood, her horses, church affairs and her sadness over the war in Ukraine. “Her faith was everything to her. She told me she had no regrets,” he said.

Brandreth wrote: “Her Majesty always knew that her remaining time was limited. She accepted this with all the grace you’d expect.” The biographer claimed he “heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma - bone marrow cancer”, which he wrote would explain her tiredness, weight loss and mobility problems. Her death certificate stated that she died of old age.

Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on any of the claims.

Brandreth, who is a friend of the royal family as well as their biographer, also wrote about Prince Philip’s final days before his death aged 99 on April 9 last year. He wrote that when the duke retired in 2017, he and his wife would go weeks without seeing each other, although they spoke on the phone. She understood his wish to be left to his own devices and “not to be fussed over”, according to the book.

Brandreth also drew on the downfall of Andrew in 2019 after his disastrous Newsnight interview. While his mother retained her “confidence” in him, she was also a “realist”, according to the biographer, who wrote that she had “essentially fired her own son”.

The book features claims from a lady-in-waiting that the late Queen’s first three children were born using a form of childbirth known as Dammerschlaf, which has been discredited. It involves women being drugged into an amnesic state during labour.

The Queen is also said to have enjoyed watching television dramas such as Line of Duty, although she sometimes struggled to understand the “convoluted plotting”. Brandreth drew on the late Queen’s reaction to her recorded skit with Paddington Bear, which was broadcast during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, saying that she had been amazed that news of the filming had not leaked and had found it “great fun”.

The Times