‘Final years’: Ominous King Charles admission resurfaces
One comment the King made in the recent past has just resurfaced, and it reveals something very grim about His Majesty’s future.
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“Out of the mouths of babes”, or so the Bible-y expression goes.
Its meaning is simple: Sometimes those most naive among us accidentally reveal the most.
Whether you think that Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex is a babe, and using whichever definition of the word you fancy (hottie or immature tyke), well, that’s between you and your god slash browser history, but a line from his nearly two-year-old memoir has taken on a grim new light.
As shocking as it might be to consider, it is less than two years since he published his roman-a-tone-deaf, Spare, a book that carved a swath through the bestseller lists and the sleepless nights of Buckingham Palace courtiers. We all know the high notes – that he lost his virginity in a field behind a pub, Prince William clocked him in a row over wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and he thought it was fine to describe an Eton house matron as THING.
It feels like I’ve been writing about Spare since long before my fingers were bleeding nubbins thanks to oh-so-much keyboard tappity-tapping, but here we are.
But it’s a line in chapter one that we need to revisit. The scene: The lush gardens of Frogmore House on April 9, 2021, the day the royal family laid Prince Philip and his favourite barbecue tongs to rest.
Only one month earlier, the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview had aired and jaws had dropped so extravagantly reams of physios were put on high alert.
The duke had flown back for the sombre day and Charles and Prince William had joined him to talk. In the ensuing conversation, he writes that the King begged his sons, “Please, boys – don’t make my final years a misery”.
“His voice sounded raspy, fragile. It sounded, if I’m being honest, old,” Harry writes.
Just think about that line, knowing what we know now: “Please, boys – don’t make my final years a misery”.
Yes, the “please boys” line got plenty of media play at the time when it was read entirely through the lens of a plaintive father pleading for some peace from his warring sons and, to some degree, taking the paternally avoidant route out. (The House of Windsor might have come to grips with 21st century technology, but their emotional bandwidth is distinctly still 19th).
But today, that “final years” bit, a throwaway reference you’d have to assume, well, it’s a different story entirely.
We are fast approaching the 10-month mark since the Palace knocked socks and sundry other garments off us all by announcing that, what was meant to be a relatively routine treatment for an enlarged prostate, had revealed the monarch has cancer. (Side note: It’s never been revealed what sort of cancer the 76-year-old actually has).
Then, with a hitherto unthinkable degree of honesty and plain dealing, which is to say, a teeny smidgen of the stuff, Crown Inc embarked on trying to keep the ship of monarchy afloat as the King started, and continues to undergo, weekly treatment.
There have been green shoots and signs of hope that things are going well. His doctors signed off on him undertaking October’s hugely successful tour of Australia and Samoa (just ask the 10,000 people who headed to the Opera House to see him and Queen Camilla) and taking an 11-day break from his treatment regimen. This month, the Telegraph reported he has “moved into the next phase” of his “cancer journey”, whatever that quite means.
Earlier this month, a source close to His Majesty told Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl that the King is “doing very well and that’s very apparent”.
But set against the backdrop of this year’s events, that reference to his “final years” takes on a much more ominous and depressing hue. Maybe we could be particularly liberal and read “final” to mean another 20 or so. Maybe.
What is clear is that the discovery of Charles’ cancer has up-ended and overturned whatever sense of certainty formerly existed when it came to the calculus about how much time he would have on the throne.
Those Windsor genes of Charles’ are ferric stuff. Before his diagnosis, I would have said that the very healthful King, a man with a strong lifelong relationship with muesli and the benefits of long, hilly walks, could well surpass the late Queen who passed away at 96. Hell, why not shoot for his grandmother’s example and refuse to go anywhere before his 101st birthday?
Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine and the army of homoeopathic tinctures, drops, balms and unguents that His Majesty is no doubt deploying alongside the best that a test tube can offer, he might very well yet hit his century and have to send himself a congratulatory 100th birthday letter.
But what that Spare line does is to drive home the uncertainty and darkness the world is operating in when it comes to His Majesty’s health.
The ancient Romans liked to dissect an occasional dove to divine the future and this Charles situation has a certain feel to it. Straws have and will continue to be clutched as we all operate in a vacuum. All tea leaves can and will be read.
At least there is one thing that we can say with some confidence – despite the challenges of 2024, he is ‘happier than ever’.
That royal source told Vanity Fair’s Nicholl: “I think the past year has shown the king to be very human. He recognises that there’s a limit to what he can do, but I do think he’s happier this year than last year. There’s a levity about him and a sense of joy. You see him hugging people and laughing. He’s happy to be here doing what he loves”.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘Final years’: Ominous King Charles admission resurfaces
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