Boris Johnson has made some revelations about the health of Queen Elizabeth in the last years of her life, as he claimed in his memoir that he “had a form of bone cancer.”

In an excerpt from his memoir, “Unleashed,” due to be published next month, the former UK prime minister writes, according to Politico, that he knew “the British monarch had a form of bone cancer” when he resigned in September 2022. It is the first time a senior political figure in Britain has referred to the possible cause of her death. Her death certificate officially lists “old age” as the cause of her death.

The revelation is highly unusual in British public life. The queen’s health has been a well kept secret during her reign, and information about meetings between the prime minister and the monarch is usually kept confidential.

Recalling his last meeting with the Queen, Johnson writes that she “looked pale and was hunched over, she had bruises on her hands and wrists, probably from injections.”

Her mood, however, did not seem to be affected. “She was completely unaffected by her illness, and during our conversations, she still flashed that big white smile,” Johnson writes. At the same time, as he pointed out, the late queen knew “all summer that she was going away, but she was determined to endure and do her last duty” as she watched the transfer of power from Johnson to his successor Liz Truss.