Worrying sign King Charles and the royal family won’t survive this

His Majesty is set to undergo treatment for cancer and there is no guarantee the monarchy will make it.

COMMENT

Sometimes the universe is just perverse. On February 6, 1952 King George VI died, never having fully recovered from lung cancer surgery, and so irrevocably and profoundly altering the course of his daughter Queen Elizabeth’s life.

And now, on February 6, 72 years later, we in Australia have woken to the news that her son King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer. Talk about a truly blighted date in the calendar.

Today, we don’t know what sort of cancer His Majesty has, only that it was accidentally discovered by doctors when the King underwent a medical procedure for an enlarged prostate last month. He is “wholly positive about his treatment” and “looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible”, the Telegraph has reported.

King Charles, seen here on Sunday, has been diagnosed with cancer. Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

There are few certainties in these sorts of situations but there is one unambiguous, painful truth here you can’t move for tripping over – the royal family is on the brink. The crown is currently buckling like a second-hand Ikea bookshelf.

Oh yes, I know. Within only two hours of Buckingham Palace announcing the news every politician, world leader, and second-grade sports team has issued some sort of supportive, peppy statement or tweet, with so many good wishes and “get well soons” flying about the place I think the internet is about to run out of the letter “G”.

The coming weeks and months will see public sympathy buoy the monarchy’s favourability numbers and general support. There will be a never-ending series of stories about what a great trooper the King is as he gets on with his red box of state papers while tucked up in a canopied four-poster bed the same size as Guernsey.

But that is not the real story.

The real story here is that in less time that it takes for cream to go off, just three weeks, a series of diagnoses have left the royal family — as an institution and as a family — teetering on the edge.

Never as hollowed out, as defeated, as struggling to stay afloat, has Crown Inc. looked than today.

Of course it’s not only Charles who is under the weather with Kate the Princess of Wales having just begun her multiple month convalescence at home after planned abdominal surgery last month. This has also seen Prince William use up his sick leave too, trading investitures for trying to find Prince George’s lost recorder down the back of one of their rococo fainting divans.

Both King Charles and the Princess of Wales are out action with illness. Picture: Chris Jackson / Pool / AFP

More broadly, in a practical sense, the past five years have seen the royal family’s ranks whittled so dramatically down it’s breathtaking. Consider on this day in 2018 also punching in on the royal clock were Her late Majesty; Prince Andrew the Duke of York, never one to miss the chance to network with a venal central Asian tyrant; Prince Harry, a man who appeared to have truly come into his own and was proving positively wizard at this royal business; and inbound was his stunner of a fiance and the best thing to happen to the Windsors since the invention of tonic water.

However what perhaps mattered more was the monarchy’s resurgent image: As a family brimming with rousing zeal for public duty and helping others; for it being a multi-generational outfit that stood for togetherness; and for the fact that there seemed to be an electrifying tide of youthful energy sweeping through the Palace thanks to those lovely Wales boys and their lovely wives.

The crown felt vital and just so chock full of promise that it was ready to meet the 21st century head on. Back then, the future looked so bright, so promising, in such rude health that a royal commentator nearly needed sunglasses. It was just giddy promise for days.

That image now seems like a mirage.

Harry, Meghan, Kate and William seen together during very different times in 2018. Picture: Chris Jackson – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Andrew’s palling about with a convicted sex offender and the civil allegations of sexual assault he faced is now forevermore part of royal history. (Andrew has always strenuously denied the claims.)

Then there is the fact that all the heartwarming togetherness of William and Harry and their other halves was nothing but some cheery play-acting for the public. Once again, in a sad repeat of their parents’ internecine ‘90s battle, the Windsor name has again become a byword for dysfunction, anger and relationships breaking down.

This is all before we even contemplate the deaths of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth; before we factor in the allegations of unconscious racial bias, of cruelty, of incestuous relations with the media, TV shows, the book, the lawsuits (10 in three years), the fights over titles, over a name, over money; or William attacking his brother in the least butch bit of fisticuffs since the Prince Regent poked a portly German count in the rump with a fish knife. (Okay, I’m entirely making that one up.)

Scandal, drama, and crises so numerous that Charles should have his own monogrammed crash helmet have walloped the Palace in only a handful of years, leaving the royals in the position they find themselves today.

The closest we have come, in any of our lifetimes, to the possibility that Crown Inc. might not make it.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have brought scandal and drama to the royal family since exiting in 2020. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation

Only days before the news about Kate and Charles’ surgery broke last month, polling done by YouGov found that only 45 per cent of Brits still support a monarch as head of state.

Over the last millennium, the British monarchy has somehow survived civil wars (three), murders (many), invasion attempts (the French and the Spanish) and the ravages of modernity on an institution that seems to spend much of its time pretending it exists outside of time and space.

However, the ground has shifted under the Palace so profoundly in only a handful of years that it’s breathtaking. Maybe the way the British monarchy ends is not with a bang but whimper.

Now, despite the best efforts of Charles, who has campaigned for 50 years now on green issues; despite William and Kate having plotted and executed a never before seen pivot from plaque-unveiling to direct activism on key issues; despite the fact the Palace now has whole teams dedicated to wielding hashtags – we just don’t know if this will be enough to keep the regal show on the road.

And here we haven’t even mentioned the rising tide of republicanism in the Commonwealth or that the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked the greatest reckoning about race, power and privilege in half a century.

The world has changed and is changing around the royal family, and I’m not sure they have entirely metabolised just how tectonic this shift has been. On Monday in the UK, the same day that the Palace announced the Charles cancer news, the BBC revealed it had gotten so many complaints about its royal coverage it is making a documentary that will “re-evaluate the role of the monarchy”, according to the press release.

There is another historic date that we just passed, unnoticed. January 21 was the 231st anniversary of France’s Louis XVI’s date with Madame Guillotine. For monarchies, there is no guarantee. Ever.

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 Worrying sign King Charles and the royal family won’t survive this