‘No longer exists’: King Charles makes stark decision about future
King Charles made headlines with a shock hospital stay recently - and now, the 76-year-old cancer patient has made a major call.
Royals
Don't miss out on the headlines from Royals. Followed categories will be added to My News.
OPINION
It’s a bleeding shame that King Charles and Pope Francis won’t be meeting up for a chinwag in Rome next week, because they have so much in common.
You might not think it, given the former is famous for having once fantasised about being his girlfriend’s tampon – something that didn’t impress his wife or the British public – and the latter is a lifelong do-gooder who goes to work wearing slippers and probably thinks Animal Planet is too racy.
But there is plenty that unites the men: They are both doing ancient jobs that they only got very late in their lives, both have had health crises of late and both face major decisions about their futures.
No matter in Rome or London, how long can you be the Bishop of Rome or Lord of the Isles if you are unwell?
The King, at least, has decided on an answer.
The late Queen believed in abdication about as much as she believed in trousers, vegetarian sausage rolls and Fergie’s promises that this was truly the last time she needed to borrow a tenner.
Her late Majesty was never going to do any of that faddish, European stepping aside business to let her son, history’s longest-serving P-plater, have a go on the throne while he still had his original teeth, unlike the monarchs of Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg.
When Queen Elizabeth made a solemn oath to god during her coronation at age 25 to serve as long as she could, she darn well meant it.
Back in May 2023, Charles made the same promise in Westminster Abbey, only he has proven since then to be a more pragmatic and less ruthlessly dogmatic follower of precedent.
That oath was also a vow he made before he was diagnosed with cancer, a revelation that must have up-ended and overturned all previous assumptions.
Today, 15 months on from the shocking announcement, His Majesty continues to have weekly treatment for an unspecified form of the disease.
While rarely mentioned by Buckingham Palace these days, they were forced to say the C word in late March after the 76-year-old was briefly hospitalised with complications due to his cancer treatment. (While the Palace has never let slip a crumb about what doctors are doing for him, the Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes has reported he is having radiotherapy).
Whatever treatment Charles is having, he has been having it for about 60 weeks now ands counting.
And yet, at the same time, the King has also been suffering from a crippling addiction – to being at his desk. (Hey, at least it’s not Scratchies).
So bad is his affliction that according to a new report, he takes only one hour off a week.
Even god took a whole day off to rest and he had been busy creating the universe, not reading interminable briefing papers from the Department of Agriculture.
A friend of the King has told The Sunday Times’ Roya Nikkhah: “He’s got a puritanical work ethic. It goes beyond any concept of a ‘working week’. He doesn’t understand the concept of downtime.
“If you work for him, the only time in the week you can relax is 11am on a Sunday when he will be at church. Other than that, you need to be ready from 8am until midnight, when he might call you at any time.”
According to Nikkhah, him even having to spend time in hospital last week, even briefly, “will have frustrated him”.
However, in the same way you can’t be half-pregnant (or half-Pope), Charles reportedly has no intention of entertaining the idea of cutting himself any sort of slack.
“He just really doesn’t feel as if he’s ‘being King’ if he’s not out there actually doing it all. That’s what drives him,” one of his closest confidants has told Nikkhah.
Those around him find his dogged attitude a cause for a few deep frown lines, with Queen Camilla having previously bemoaned her inability to get him to “behave himself” and trim his workload, having failed in “trying to hold him back”.
Prince William likewise reportedly “worries” about his “workaholic” father.
Which brings us to the obvious, decidedly awkward question: What next?
Like the Pope, who was recently hospitalised for five weeks, how much longer can or will these men do these demanding, supposedly lifelong jobs?
Charles, according to those in his inner circle, has already decided.
“The King will never retire,” a friend told the Times.
“He has a deep spiritual sense of what it means to be sovereign. He will work until he no longer exists, like his mother did.”
There will be no backing down, backing out or deciding to spend his later years puttering about this Highgrove Garden whispering to beetles and stroking his favourite oak trees.
The King is in this until the bitter end.
There have been no substantive updates about his cancer since April 2024, when the Palace announced that he was well enough and doctors had given the green light to him returning to public duties.
There are definitive positive signs though, like him being well enough to jet off to Italy this week with Camilla to do some Euro-waving and being up to private outings like recently squeezing in a trip to ballet. (“He seemed to be in perfect health,” a source who spent time with the king at the ballet told The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes).
Still, there are also moments like in October last year, on the last day of his trip to the South Pacific, when he said, “I shall always remain devoted to this part of the world and hope that I survive long enough to come back again and see you”.
Which means Prince William may very well have decades to cool his heels and practice the key job requirement of the Prince of Wales – patience. (Charles is only 76, 20 years younger than the late Queen was when she shuffled off the mortal coil).
Though if I was a courtier, I’d maybe start checking the Palace’s throne room every Sunday at 11am.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘No longer exists’: King Charles makes stark decision about future
‘Life is at stake’: Prince Harry’s security fight gets personal
A London court heard Prince Harry believes the “manifestly inferior” bodyguards provided to his family in Britain after the plug was pulled on taxpayer-funded security put them in jeopardy.
King, Queen’s surprising bed arrangements
The royal couple don’t always have the most ‘peachy’ relationship, but there is something that’s kept them together for so long.