Queen Elizabeth's amusing reaction to crossbow intruder who threatened to 'kill' her on Christmas Day

Queen Elizabeth's reaction to news of an intruder, armed with a crossbow, who threatened to kill her at Windsor Castle was that of amusement instead of fear, a new book has claimed.

The late monarch said that had the man succeeded in his attempts to harm her, it would have "put a dampner on Christmas".

The response exemplified the Queen's famously wry sense of humour, author Gyles Brandreth writes in an extract of Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, serialised in the Daily Mail.

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The Queen, he says, was always able to take "the possibility of being in the firing line in her stride".

The security threat happened on Christmas Day in 2021, when the crossbow-wielding man attempted to gain entry to Windsor Castle.

The Queen was in residence at the time but was not harmed.

Police apprehended the 19-year-old after they found him outside the castle with the weapon at 8.30am on December 25.

He told the officer on duty that he had come "to kill the Queen".

The intruder was arrested and charged under the 1842 Treason Act.

When the Queen was informed of the incident, Brandreth writes, "she said to one of her team in the Windsor Covid 'bubble': 'Yes, well, that would have put a dampener on Christmas, wouldn't it?'"

The monarch, who was 95 at the time, was with Prince Charles and Camilla inside the castle.

It was their first Christmas without the Duke of Edinburgh, who had died in April aged 99.

Brandreth said it was Her Majesty's "wry, dry, humorous way of looking at things" that made a particular impression on him.

His biography, to be published on December 8, includes a number of revelations about the Queen's life, in particular her final years.

But his claim that the Queen was secretly battling bone cancer in the latter stages of her life has garnered the most attention.

"I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma — bone marrow cancer — which would explain her tiredness and weight loss and those 'mobility issues' we were often told about during the last year or so of her life," Brandreth, who is a close confidant of the royal family, wrote.

"The most common symptom of myeloma is bone pain, especially in the pelvis and lower back, and multiple myeloma is a disease that often affects the elderly.

"Currently, there is no known cure, but treatment — including medicines to help regulate the immune system and drugs that help prevent the weakening of the bones — can reduce the severity of its symptoms and extend the patient's survival by months or two to three years."

Buckingham Palace has not responded to this claim.