A controversial new book has sensationally claimed that both the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were ‘helped on their way’ with lethal doses of drugs as they lay on their death beds. Whilst other writers have speculated that these ‘mercy killings’ were carried out so that the deaths of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret would not coincide with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and thereby overshadow the planned celebrations, in Killing For the Crown: Our Murderous Monarchy, veteran Royal watcher Roger Todgingly argues that they were actually done away in order to avert major scandals.

“Both the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret had enjoyed hedonistic lifestyles -drink, drugs and wild sex in quantities that mere commoners can only dream of – and were finally paying the price! The poor old Queen Mother was riddled with syphilis and other disgusting diseases, her liver about to pack up through alcohol abuse and her pancreas destroyed by drugs – she was a sorry sight in her last days, confined to bed, drooling and rambling incoherently. There were fears that she might start letting slip details of some of her scandalous sexual liaisons – Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra and Rudolf Hess, for instance – which could cause immense embarrassment to the Royal Family. Consequently, she was administered a fatal dose of diamorphine on the morning of her death, and potential scandal was averted,” he contends. “In Princess Margaret’s case, her drinking had reached epic proportions – towards the end she was so paralytic all the time that she was unable to walk unaided and had to be wheeled around everywhere in a wheelchair. Of course, the Palace tried to cover it up by claiming that she’d had a heart attack, but the tell-tale signs were all there – the glazed expression, the rambling slurred speech and an inability to control bladder and bowel movements. Actually, it was the complete incontinence which proved the final straw – there was no way the Queen could keep blaming the smell on the corgis whenever they had guests at the Palace! Sooner or later the truth about Princess Margaret’s condition was bound to break – the press would have had a field day!” Like her mother, Princess Margaret was despatched with a massive dose of heroin in order that the monarchy retain its clean cut image in Golden Jubilee year.

However, they were not the first victims of ‘Royal euthanasia’ according to Todgingly. “These two killings are just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “I have evidence that at least two British monarchs were despatched by the same method during the twentieth century alone!” He believes that in 1936 King George V was sent on his way with a massive dose of cocaine, timed so that news of his death would coincide with the morning edition of The Times rather than the less appropriate populist evening papers. Moreover, in 1952 his son, King George VI was allegedly similarly despatched in order to cover up a homosexual affair with a footman. “The clue is in his last words – ‘Bugger Bognor’,” opines Todgingly, “Whilst this is usually claimed to have been a response to his physician’s suggestion that he should convalesce in the Sussex seaside resort of Bognor Regis, my research has shown that one Jason Bognor, a young footman, was in the King’s employ at the time and was known to be very close to the monarch! He vanished after the King’s death and later turned up dead in a gay brothel in Paris!”

But just who is behind these ‘mercy killings’? The Royal Family itself? Or the British Government, perhaps? Todgingly believes that they are all the work of a sinister secret society dedicated to averting major Royal scandals. “According to my sources this shadowy group, known as The Sacred League of Britannic Glory, has close links with the freemasons, the secret services, the government and the Royal Family, and is dedicated to averting scandals which could damage Britain’s standing in the world. Many establishment figures, including senior politicians, financiers and military men, are members of its governing council which, every time it determines a scandal involving prominent citizens is about to break, sanctions the appropriate action, and its official executioner (always a leading medical doctor) is despatched,” he asserts. “Interestingly, according to witness accounts, all of the Royal victims were attended by a mysterious ‘Royal Doctor’ during their final hours. These shadowy figures always seemed to appear unbidden, were always dressed in black, wore top hats and leather gloves, carried a black medical bag and vanished as quickly as they had appeared! Within mere hours of their visit, the Royal patient would die, apparently peacefully in their sleep. There is never any record of their visit, although they always seem to be known by senior Royals and their staff!”

Other Royal commentators remain sceptical about Todgingly’s claims. “Quite frankly, I doubt very much that a single dose of heroin, no matter how large, would have had any effect on the Queen Mother – she’ d taken so many drugs in her time that her body had built up a natural tolerance for them! By the end she was resorting to drinking chloroform and injecting cockroach poison in a desperate attempt to get a high,” says Hugh Ropley-Tossington, author of Muck House: Inside the Pleasure Palace and several other muck-raking books about Royalty. “In my opinion, its far more likely that her Son-in-law finally got fed up with the old bat and smothered her with a pillow.” He also thinks it unlikely that a secret society is killing Royals in an attempt to stem potential scandals: “They aren’t doing a very good job, are they? Surely they would have quietly offed Princess Di before she had affairs and divorced Prince Charles? What about the Royal butler business, why didn’t he suddenly die in his sleep? Come to think of it, why is he still breathing? Surely he is just about the most embarrassing thing about the Royal family at the moment!”

Lord Fawning of St Giles, a veteran monarchist and close friend of the late Queen Mother, believes that claims she was killed to avoid a sexual scandal are ludicrous. “Her role in attempting to seduce top Nazis prior to and during WWII is well known and was officially sanctioned,” he says. “Rudolf Hess became so besotted with her after she seduced him in the back of a Panzer in a Leipzig lay-by in 1936, that he consequently stole a plane and flew all the way to Scotland to be with her in 1941! He was captured trying to climb through the window of her private bathroom at Balmoral Castle. And let us not forget how she damn near seduced Hitler at the Nuremberg rally by hiding behind the podium and giving him a blow-job! His speech was just beginning to falter when Eva Braun found her and dragged her out, a furious catfight ensuing. Another minute and Hitler would have been discredited as he collapsed before he could finish his greatest speech and war might have been averted! God bless her!”