The late Queen is said to have orchestrated a “military-style exercise” to stand on Buckingham Palace’s balcony during her Platinum Jubilee despite feeling frail.
Her Majesty, who died aged 96 in September in her Balmoral estate, also apparently hid the wheelchair she had been using during last year’s celebrations to mark her record 70 years on the throne to please her fans.
New book ‘Our King: Charles III – The Man and the Monarch’ by royal correspondent Robert Jobson made the claims, and it says in an extract run by the Daily Mail about the Queen’s efforts to stand and wave to the waiting crowds from the Palace balcony: “In considerable discomfort, Her Majesty was taken by wheelchair to the helicopter pad at Windsor.
“At the Palace, she was wheeled right up to the balcony doors, then helped to her feet so that she could stand – with the aid of a walking stick – alongside Charles and Camilla, plus William and his family.
“After a firework display, the Queen smiled with delight. It was her last salute to her people.”
The book adds the late Queen and her husband Prince Philip grew closer to the the-Prince Charles before their deaths.
A source says in the tome: “Over the last year of Philip’s life, they were the closest that they had ever been.”
It adds Charles – due to be crowned as King on 6 May at Westminster Abbey – shared a joke with Philip hours before the royal’s death aged 99 on 9 April 2021, while he sat at his dad’s bedside talking about plans for the Duke of Edinburgh’s upcoming 100th birthday.
Charles is said to have told him: “We are talking about your birthday, and whether there’s going to a reception.”
Philip apparently replied: “Well, I’ve got to be alive for it, haven’t I?” – which is said to have prompted Charles to reply: “I knew you’d say that!”
