The late Queen had a surprising and witty response when she learned an intruder who broke into the Windsor Castle grounds wanted to kill her, a new book has claimed.
The monarch had been in her personal quarters on Christmas Day last year when armed police were scrambled to apprehend a man who had broken into the castle grounds.
She had been waiting to greet her son, now King Charles and his wife Camilla, when the suspect, who was masked and carrying a crossbow, announced he had come to "kill the Queen".
And in a new book called Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, author Gyles Brandreth, a close friend of the royals, claims the monarch took the news of the intruder in her stride.
Image:
Getty Images)It comes Mr Brandreth, a friend of Prince Philip's, claimed that the Queen was battling a painful cancer before she died.
Whilst her death caught many by surprise, the book claims she knew it was coming.
Despite her death being officially listed as old age, the biographer said that the monarch had a rare form of bone cancer, myeloma.
Image:
Getty Images)He wrote: "I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma — bone marrow cancer — which would explain her tiredness and weight loss and those ‘mobility issues’ we were often told about during the last year or so of her life.
"The most common symptom of myeloma is bone pain, especially in the pelvis and lower back, and multiple myeloma is a disease that often affects the elderly.
"Currently, there is no known cure, but treatment — including medicines to help regulate the immune system and drugs that help prevent the weakening of the bones — can reduce the severity of its symptoms and extend the patient’s survival by months or two to three years.”
In the final months of her life, the Queen was said to have accepted that the end was near for her.
Mr Brandreth wrote that the 96-year-old approached the end with "good grace".
