Kate Middleton’s major setback as royal health crisis deepens

The Princess of Wales has taken a hit as she recovers at home from abdominal surgery.

‘Painfully aware’: Kate’s major setback. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

COMMENT

There is one thing required of all royal women. Damn the curtsy, stuff the slightly rigid wave, and you can keep – neigh, burn – all those nude pantyhose.

One must be a Trooper.

On Thursday Queen Camilla drove for six hours in the rain, after weather warnings grounded her chopper, to keep up a charity commitment. The same day, in a rare instance, the royal press pack trailed Princess Anne as she flew the flag for Team Palace, visiting the Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre, where she gave strict directions about the cake. (That might be the most Anne sentence I have ever had the pleasure of writing.)

“The instructions are that you will eat it if I cut it, because otherwise it’s just legalised vandalism,” the Princess Royal joked. Dear god, I love her.

Troopers gonna troop.

And quietly, far away from the cameras, another royal trooper – Kate the Princess of Wales – was privately suffering a serious setback as she recovers from abdominal surgery.

Kate the Princess of Wales is privately suffering a serious setback as she recovers from abdominal surgery. Picture: Odd Andersen / AFP

The bombshell news this week that King Charles is being treated for an unspecified form of cancer has shifted the ground under Kate, the UK’s number one buyer of sensible slacks, and husband Prince William, at a time when their plates are already full-to-brimming.

However much pressure and strain the Waleses – but most especially Kate – were already under to get back to work has, with the King’s news, just been ratcheted up – and then some.

After a dramatic month and several very dramatic years we have, of course, had even more drama in the last few days. First Buckingham Palace revealed that the King is being treated for an unspecified form of cancer and second Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex made a mad dash over the Atlantic, to not even get a cup of tea from his Pa. (Well, I’m guessing. They were only together for a skimpy 30 minutes.)

Never has the princess been more painfully needed by Crown Inc to be front and centre than now.

Yet Kate has not been seen since Christmas Day, more than six weeks ago, and nor are we going to see her until early April – and that is only if we are all very good, eat our vegetables and her recovery goes according to plan.

With His Majesty now fighting cancer, the royal family has entered totally unprecedented territory. If we were on one of those 16th century maps, we are now in the bit where it simply reads ‘there be dragons’. No monarch has ever adopted such comparative frankness (emphasis on ‘comparative’) about their health. And no one knows what comes next.

The stability, continuity and rousing good works offered by the royal family’s star players have never been more urgent and necessary to try and keep the Palace show on the road.

How can the knowledge of this not be placing even more of a burden on Kate?

On a personal level, her affection for her father-in-law abundantly clear, the princess would want to help and professionally, she must know that Charles & co. need her back at the royal coalface as fast as possible.

The stability, continuity and rousing good works offered by the royal family’s star players have never been more urgent and necessary. Picture: Daniel Leal / POOL / AFP

Even thinking about the pressure she must be under today is enough to make me want to go and lie in a dark room listening to the best of Enya.

Also at play here is the fact that Kate’s convalesce has taken William off of the royal chessboard too. The prince took nearly a full month off work to care for his wife and their three children, proving he really meant the ‘in sickness and health’ bit of their marriage vows.

On Wednesday he made a brief return to the public view, first hosting an investiture at Windsor Castle and then later appearing at a black tie charity gala for the London Air Ambulance, where he towered over number one on the spaceship when Xenu finally comes back, Tom Cruise.

However, Kensington Palace has made it clear that this was not William putting his shoulder back to the wheel and throwing himself into work but him keeping commitments he had made prior to Kate’s surgery.

Back the prince has now gone to cut crusts off big lunch sandwiches and to supportively watch Below Deck in bed with Kate.

Courtiers will be counting down the days until the Princess of Wales dons one of her trusty Zara blazers again. Picture: Karwai Tang/WireImage

The Daily Mail has reported that Charles wholly supports William and Kate’s sick leave with a source having said: “The King adores Catherine and thinks she is doing a wonderful job. He understands that family comes first.”

However, did all this warm support come before or after His Majesty found out he has cancer?

Consider here that even though Charles went in for surgery for an enlarged prostate in January, he was only meant to be out of public action for a few weeks. It would have been a relatively manageable blip.

That equation got flipped on its head when the ‘c’ word entered the frame with the King now facing being stuck behind closed doors for an unknown length of time after his doctors advised him to minimise his contact with the germy masses.

During the pandemic the royal family played a belter, proving ‘have laptop, can do official engagements’. Even the late Queen became au fait with cheerily making her patent small talk via Zoom.

Kensington Palace has made it clear William is not putting his shoulder back to the wheel and throwing himself into work. Picture: Daniel Leal – WPA Pool/Getty Images

But as the redoubtable Her late Majesty once famously said, “I have to be seen to be believed.” The great existential question currently plaguing the Palace is, what if there is no one left to be seen?

The loss of five former working members of the royal family in as many years – the late Queen, Prince ‘BBQ tongs’ Philip, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and the Prince of Pizza Express Woking, the plonker-in-chief Andrew – has already whittled the frontline ranks down to bare bones.

Now all of this.

Kate must be painfully aware that she and William have never been more needed and more fundamental to the great, gilded project of the monarchy than now.

While public sympathy for the King must be close to being at an all-time high, the coming months will take us into the uncharted waters and choppy seas of a dramatically reduced, struggling royal family led by the trooping women of the House of Windsor. Buck up old stick. Be a brick and crack on.

Kate must be painfully aware that she and William have never been more needed and more fundamental to the great, gilded project of the monarchy than now. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Camilla and Anne are, in my book, simply super but let’s be honest: Watching two women in their seventies valiantly Getting On With Things and undertaking engagements that involve ponies and pensioners isn’t going to do much in the battle for hearts and minds.

Make no bones about it: Crown Inc. must be desperate for William and Kate – but, you know, mostly Kate – to be back out there working some Wales magic, sharpish like.

At this stage, I wouldn’t be surprised if courtiers wasted precious minutes this week cheering themselves up by creating some sort of tear-off countdown of days until the Princess of Wales will be donning one of her trusty Zara blazers again and can be sent off to open a new netball court.

In all of this, after everything, there’s only one thing for it. Do as Anne would like us all to do and have a nice big bit of cake. You have the Princess Royal’s strict instructions to do so.

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.