The former Prime Minister felt a “mounting sense of panic” when a poll predicted victory for the nationalist campaign while he was staying at Balmoral. He made the astonishing suggestion that the monarch “raise an eyebrow” on the issue in talks with officials. Mr Cameron’s decision to involve the Queen in politics and to reveal the details as part of his publicity blitz promoting his memoirs stretches royal protocols to the limit.

In a BBC documentary, he said the poll findings putting the Yes to independence campaign ahead for the first time felt like a “blow to the solar plexus” and led to a “mounting sense of panic that this could go the wrong way”.

He added: “I remember conversations I had with my private secretary and he had with the Queen’s private secretary and I had with the Queen’s private secretary, not asking for anything that would be in any way improper or unconstitutional, but just a raising of the eyebrow, even, you know, a quarter of an inch, we thought would make a difference.”

A few days before the referendum in September 2014, the Queen told a well-wisher in Aberdeenshire that she hoped “people would think very carefully about the future”.

The comment was seized on by many pro-union campaigners as an indication that the Queen was urging voters to keep the UK together.

In an interview for The Cameron Years documentary, the ex-PM said the remarks were “certainly well covered” by the media.

“Although the words were very limited, I think it helped to put a slightly different perception on things,” he added.

The explosive revelation is that have emerged as Mr Cameron promotes his memoirs For the Record.

In the two-party BBC documentary, which looks at his six year premiership, tensions in his close friendship with George Osborne over Brexit are laid bare.

The ex-chancellor told the programme he believed the referendum result was partly down to Mr Cameron stoking the idea that “Brussels was to blame”.

He said the government “held a referendum we should never have held” and the consequences for the country are “grave”.

Mr Osborne added: “David Cameron was just one of a number of British prime ministers who had fed this idea that we were different than Europe, that Brussels was to blame and that the public ultimately had to have a say, and we’ve all paid a price for it in my view.

“I feel very sorry for what happened, and I feel responsible, I was the chancellor of the exchequer in that government, we held a referendum we should never have held, we then lost that referendum and the consequences for the country are grave, and the only thing I can plead in my mitigation is that a huge number of people wanted that referendum, and I made a case against it, but it wasn’t heard.”

In a separate interview for LBC, Mr Cameron discussed the distressing accusation made by the Guardian he had only suffered “privileged pain” over the death of his son.

The former premier had praised the NHS care his disabled son Ivan received before he died aged six in 2009 but was attacked by the left-wing newspaper, which later apologised for the comments.

Mr Cameron told the radio station: “Look, there is no privilege in holding your eldest born child in your arms as their life drains away. Death knows no privilege.”

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