Overview

• Valentine Low’s new book, Power and the Palace, reports that Prince William urged the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, to seek an intervention before the referendum.
• According to the book, Geidt and cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood crafted the phrasing used when the Queen told a well-wisher she hoped people would “think very carefully” that week.
• David Cameron has previously acknowledged lobbying the monarch to speak after polls tightened, and the No side ultimately won with 55% of the vote.
• Former SNP MP Tommy Sheppard has called for an investigation into the allegation, while a spokesman for the Prince of Wales declined to comment and Buckingham Palace has long emphasized the monarch’s impartiality.
• The book also reports that Queen Elizabeth II showed little enthusiasm for the 2013 reform ending male-preference succession, a change coordinated with other Commonwealth realms.