FORMER prime minister David Cameron has admitted urging the Queen to get involved in Scotland’s referendum on independence.

Speaking to the BBC, the former Tory chief said he turned to the monarch after the publication of a Sunday Times poll predicting a Yes victory.

Not long after, the Queen made a rare intervention in politics, telling a well-wisher outside Crathie Kirk near her Balmoral estate that she hoped Scotland would “think very carefully about the future”.

The monarch is supposed to remain above the political fray.

At the time, Buckingham Palace played down the remarks saying the Queen “maintains her constitutional impartiality”.

READ MORE: Ian Blackford in 'absolute commitment' to holding indyref2

Cameron admitted he’d made contact with Buckingham Palace officials in 2014, suggesting the monarch could “raise an eyebrow”.

He said that the Sunday Times poll, which put Yes on 51%, felt like a “blow to the solar plexus” and led to a “mounting sense of panic that this could go the wrong way”.

Cameron 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.”

Referring to the Queen’s remarks outside Crathie Kirk, Cameron said: “It was certainly well covered ... Although the words were very limited, I think it helped to put a slightly different perception on things.”

Cameron ended up having to apologise to the Queen after he broke convention to tell former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg that she had “purred down the line” when he informed her that Scotland had voted No.

Former first minister Alex Salmond disputed Cameron’s claims that the Queen’s independence referendum intervention was in response to his “raised eyebrow” request.

Salmond told The National: “Begging a constitutional monarch to make a political intervention is not only totally improper but an indication of how desperate Prime Minister Cameron was in the final stages of the Scottish referendum campaign.

“Five years on Scotland should remember that Westminster does not recognise any political rule book.

“Cameron started the campaign uber confident and ended up in a blue funk. I doubt if Scotland will let the establishment off the hook next time around.

He added: “As to Cameron’s suggestion that he was successful in securing a royal intervention, I doubt that.

“What I can vouch for is that the week after the referendum I was asked to meet the Queen at Balmoral. We discussed Cameron’s ‘purring comments’ to Michael Bloomberg in New York in the aftermath of the referendum where he again blurted out what he claimed were her private thoughts.

“Unlike David Cameron, I will not divulge what she said but suffice to say she was very far from amused at his behaviour”

The first episode of the two-part documentary, The Cameron Years, is broadcast on BBC1 at 9pm tonight.

Meanwhile, Salmond has also said he would have delayed the vote on independence in 2014 if he had known Boris Johnson was to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister.