Queen Elizabeth Has A Secret Plan To Let Prince Charles Take Over While She Is Still Alive, New Book Reports

At the age of 92, Britain’s monarch Queen Elizabeth II continues a vigorous pace of work and shows little time of slowing, making a remarkable 292 official public appearances in 2017, as the Inquisitr reported. She is also the longest-reigning queen or king in the centuries-old history of Great Britain, assuming the throne upon the death of her father King George VI on February 6, 1952, and remaining there for the nearly 67 years since, as CNN noted.

But according to a new book, Charles at 70: Thoughts, Hopes And Dreams by journalist Robert Jobson, which is currently being serialized by the Daily Mail newspaper, the Queen is secretly making plans to retire — though she would not surrender the throne. Instead, her son and the subject of Jobson’s book, Prince Charles, would be named “regent” of the United Kingdom, assuming all of the duties and responsibilities of a king, without actually being one.

After a scandal that shook Britain, when the then-10-year-old Elizabeth’s uncle, King Edward VIII, quit the throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, an American who had already been divorced twice, Elizabeth vowed that she would never step down, remaining monarch until her own death, according to NBC News. But under her secret plan, according to Jobson, she could remain queen while passing on the role of presiding over the government to Prince Charles, who will turn 70 on November 14.

“At 92, the Queen knows that even she cannot go on for ever. And so — smoothly, discreetly, and unnoticed by many — a handover of royal power is taking place right before our eyes,” Jobson writes.

According to an account by the British Mirror newspaper, however, the Queen will not let Charles become regent until she reaches the age of 95, in the year 2021.

The ability of a British monarch to appoint a regent — generally the heir next in line to the throne — to oversee the government, without abdicating the throne, was established in the Regency Act, which was last invoked in 1811, according to the site Intriguing History.

But Jobson’s book is not the first time that reports have claimed that the elderly queen would cite the Regency Act to allow Charles to take over. Similar rumors circulated last year, according to the Independent newspaper. But they were denied by royal insiders who reported that Queen Elizabeth had told them, “duty first, nation first, I’m going to be there.”