The late Queen made the comment “to amuse” during a gathering of family and her closest aides in Balmoral two days before her death, an author has claimed.
Sources who knew the late Queen have warned the words did not sound like her, not least because she would have been aware the Earl Marshal is responsible for royal funerals. Buckingham Palace did not comment.
“The courtier explained that the Queen’s final days had been happy ones,” writes Shipman of September 2022.
“She had enjoyed a gathering of her family and treasured staff two evenings before her death.
“The courtier confided that when Boris Johnson was mentioned, the Queen, mischief in her eye, had said: ‘Well, at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now’.
“This, it seems, was said to amuse, but it was a widely shared sentiment in the royal household.”
But, he writes: “The Queen’s reaction was actually more sanguine than some. She thought Johnson a roguish and comic figure and took the disaster in her stride. One senior royal aide characterised her approach as, ‘These things happen’.”
The then-Prince of Wales was “absolutely furious” and “outraged that Boris should treat the Queen like that”, he claims.
Prince William’s aides also “let it be known that in his reign as King there would be ‘more private, robust challenging of advice’ between the monarch and his prime ministers”, it is claimed.
Johnson, who was despairing of the “woke” ideology, is said to have replied: “I wouldn’t talk about slavery if I were you, or you’ll end up having to sell the Duchy of Cornwall to pay reparations to the people who built the Duchy of Cornwall”.
The palaces were contacted for comment.
Out by Tim Shipman is published by HarperCollins and will be released in New Zealand on December 4.