Queen Elizabeth Had Asked to Be ‘Kept Alive’ for One Last Event She Felt Would Be a ‘Shame’ to Miss

The late Queen Elizabeth II was one of the most uncontroversial monarchs in British history. During her 70-year reign, she was rarely known to reveal her private struggles. But according to her former butler, who has now spilled the beans in his new book, The Royal Insider, there was one moment when the monarch let her guard down and made a personal request to her doctors. 

Paul Burrell, who worked closely with the Queen for years, claims that she requested her doctors to keep her alive long enough after being diagnosed with cancer so she would not miss her Platinum Jubilee. In her final stretch of life, she quietly confided in only a small circle of trusted staff. Her pages, footmen, and dressers knew the truth, but even her family was unaware of her diagnosis. “It was devastating for her so soon after losing him,” Burrell recalls, referring to the death of Prince Philip in 2021. “As far as the family was concerned, everything was fine, but the doctors’ prognosis gave her only until Christmas.”

The Queen’s reaction was characteristically practical and unemotional, but it was also tinged with determination.. “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?” Burrell writes, as excerpted in The Daily Mail. What followed was a strict dietary regimen that had to be designed specially to preserve her strength. Known for her fondness for evening cocktails, the monarch gave up her gin and tonics, Dubonnet, and Martinis. However, soon they had to be replaced with apple juice, and on cheat days, that is Sundays, tomato juice. 

She endured blood transfusions and carefully followed her doctors’ instructions, all because she was determined to make it to her milestone, and she did it in June 2022. She became the first ever British sovereign to mark 70 years on the throne. The sight of her standing on the Buckingham Palace balcony, surrounded by her family and waving to the crowd, was surreal, according to Burrell. But, he claimed, she knew her time was drawing close. “The doctors kept her alive to witness this landmark in her reign,” he writes. “But the late monarch knew through it all that she was dying.”

Burrell’s account also suggests that the Queen deliberately kept her diagnosis from even her closest relatives until the very end. As per him, this decision was about protecting them from worry and also about preventing talk of a regency. "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.”

Despite her willpower, the late Queen had to miss some events, like her all-time favorite Epsom Derby.