THE Queen “will accept” Scottish independence if voters back Yes in a second referendum, according to the monarch’s biographer.
In a new book published in the year of the Queen's platinum jubilee, Robert Hardman wrote of the Queen's possible political opinion on independence for Scotland.
Despite the Queen's 2014 comments on the Union - that voters should think “very carefully” about Scotland's future - Hardman agrees she would accept the choice of the Scottish people.
Partly quoting former Prime Minister David Cameron, Hardman writes: “She would ready herself for either result.
"Of course, she would be very sad if the Union came to an end, but if it is the democratic will, I think she will say to herself, ‘If this is what people have voted for, it is my duty to make it work’.”
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The Queen, who is currently in her 70th year as monarch, must remain politically neutral however Hardman recalls the "most forthright political statement she has ever uttered” was on the possibility of Scottish devolution in 1997.
Addressing both the houses of parliament, the Queen said that “this jubilee is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which Union has conferred ... on the inhabitants of all parts of this United Kingdom".
At the time the speech angered many independence supporters.
The former Daily Mail correspondent, best known for his work on the royal family, also wrote that the Queen and the Royal family "love" and feel "liberated" in Scotland.
Hardman writes: “The Queen and Prince Charles feel viscerally Scottish, especially when they are in Scotland.”
The Queen will celebrate her platinum jubilee on June 3 of this year.
Hardman will be at the Aye Write book festival in Glasgow on May 14.
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