Jeffrey Archer: Queen Camilla pays tribute to 'irrepressible' author and former politician

Queen Camilla has paid tribute to the bestselling author and former politician Jeffrey Archer, who has died at the age of 86.

She added that Archer was "not without flaw", but that "friends will recall him as an irrepressible life force through all the many differing chapters of his life".

The Queen said he was "an exception to the end" and that it was "with sadness that I learned of his death yesterday, on the eve of publication of his final work and so soon after appearing at my Queen's Reading Room Festival".

"My sympathies go to Mary and the family at this time of sorrow. I hope it may be some consolation for them to know what pleasure Jeffrey brought to me and to so many millions of readers through the pages of his works.

Archer's parties were known for serving champagne and shepherd's pie to guests.

Archer sold more than 300 million books in his five-decade writing career, including the Clifton Chronicles and Kane and Abel, and often set the novels in his home town of Wellington, Somerset.

Archer was born in north London in 1940 but soon moved to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset and in 1969, Archer was elected MP for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth.

He moved to the House of Lords in 1992 but was jailed for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001.

He was also found to have perjured himself on oath during the libel trial.

Jeffrey Archer, pictured here with Margaret Thatcher, served as a Conservative MP and deputy party chairman

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch described Archer's death as "devastating news".