Grim new report reveals King Charles is ‘sleeping a lot’ and ‘not well’ as he fights cancer

Yet another royal insider has come forward to claim all is not well with King Charles as the monarch continues to battle cancer.

If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face – ironically the colour you will end up if you are in the Highlands sans thermal unmentionables – for a wealthy family, there are more obvious places to holiday in high summer than a remote bit of Scotland where the top temperatures barely bust double digits and midge repellent is mandatory.

Still, like a nice bit of Swiss horological precision work, every year the royal family troop north with the predictability of, well, the Swiss railways – on time, on schedule and under budget, and as I write, a small prince is probably getting his tartan socks wet paddling a loch with the Windsors having converged on Balmoral.

So far, so normal – except sadly, the usual and the predictable end there.

King Charles is nowhere near the 167-room castle, he is “sleeping a lot” and it is “plainly apparent” that “he is not well”, according to new details courtesy of one of the best connected people in the business, the Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes.

One insider has gone so far as to tell Sykes, “things can go wrong very fast with cancer”.

Unlike other peoples’ holiday homes where children are crammed in bunk beds in weeny rooms and adults are perpetually falling all over each other to find the bottle opener, the Balmoral estate features other, in themselves grand, houses. Rather than staying at the Big House, this time, Charles and Queen Camilla are instead staying at their own home on the estate Birkhall, where in fact they spent much of the pandemic.

While Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their three kids have the run of the actual castle, per the Beast, His Majesty has been doing his own regal version of “how’s the serenity?” far away from multiple pairs of small muddy gumboots, and avoiding Balmoral itself.

King Charles has avoided Balmoral. Picture: Euan Cherry/Getty Images

Camilla is reportedly concerned for her husband. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

A source has told Sykes: “The king is sleeping a lot”, which is understandable. For the last seven months now, the 75-year-old has been receiving an unspecified form of cancer treatment for an unspecified form of cancer.

It’s not all paisley PJ time for the sovereign mind you, with the source saying of Charles: “He is not one to sit around doing nothing, so relaxing for him takes the form of reading, writing, painting and gardening. He has always loved throwing on his wellies and getting out in the garden, that’s his happy place”.

Which is very much the picture of amiable, Renaissance man contemplativeness – and which is going to be a short-lived idyll with those around him already fretting about his workload in the coming months. He might only be a wet-behind-the-ears King, about to mark two years on the throne, but he is also a man on his way to 80 who is battling a very serious illness and who is about to undertake a “gruelling” multi-week bit of international statecraft.

Even now, nearly two months out from their Majesties Australian tour, it sounds like aides – and the Queen – are already fretting.

“Insiders [are] urging caution over his packed schedule,” Sykes has reported, adding they are “increasingly nervous about a gruelling overseas tour to Australia and Samoa planned for October”.

A source told the Beast: “He is the king and everyone understands he wants to get on and do the job. His bravery and courage in the face of what he is facing is amazing. But plenty of people would prefer it if he wasn’t going”.

King Charles reacts as he views tributes following the July 29 attack at a children's' dance party in Southport. Picture: Peter Powell/AFP

Already the tour has been “significantly” trimmed and pruned from the original plans, with the New Zealand and Fiji legs having been canned also (do Australians feel special yet?)

What had originally started out as a 21-day itinerary has now been cut down to 10 days, including travel time and a 48-hour rest period between countries.

Only last week, the King’s dedication to his post was on show when, 24 hours after officially beginning his Balmoral break, he travelled 500 kilometres to Southport to view floral tributes to Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, who were murdered during a Taylor Swift dance class and to meet first responders. The following day, he was 380 kilometres south again, in London, to meet the girls’ devastated families and to receive treatment before making his way 820 kilometres back up to Balmoral again.

“I actually think William could have deputised for Charles at Southport,” an insider told the Beast. 

“I have tremendous admiration for the incredibly brave way Charles has conducted himself over the past six months but he is not well, it is plainly apparent just from looking at him, and things can go wrong very fast with cancer.”

(Though I’d have to disagree on the William-going-in-his-stead part. If the Prince of Wales had replaced his father, it would have either set off alarm bells about the King’s health and/or not unwarranted criticism that it’s exactly in moments of national crisis and tragedy that the monarch is expected to front up and to do their thing. Kings aren’t just for rainy days and going to the Braemar Games).

It has been suggested Prince William should step in for his father. Picture: Jon Super – WPA Pool/Getty Images

If courtiers are unhappy with Charles’ pace, then spare a thought for Camilla who has not bothered to hide her frustration with her husband. In May, at an event, she said that Charles was “getting better” before good-naturedly adding, “Well, he would be if he behaved himself”.

The following month at a bookish event in June, Her Majesty told bestseller Lee Child of the King, he’s “doing fine” but “won’t slow down and won’t do what he’s told”.

As a friend of the Queen told Sykes last week: “Camilla would have been deeply unhappy that having only begun his holiday on Monday, he broke it off on Tuesday to do an incredibly intense engagement … She wants him to slow down, she is afraid he is working too hard, and that’s before you even get to the Australia tour”.

All of this, and the biggest question of all remains unanswered. With the death of Prince Philip, former supremo of the loch-side barbecue tongs, who is currently on snag duty at Balmoral? And why do I have a bad feeling that Prince Andrew is currently having a strop, whining “But it’s my turn!” while Princess Anne ignores him and masterfully manages the chops?

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles