The workaholic King wants to build a legacy — but what about his health?
Charles is frustrated that cancer stalled his first year as monarch – and is even more annoyed about being seen as a ‘caretaker King’. He’s just returned to duties and is focused on his legacy, but William is worried.
He is one of the nation’s most prolific letter writers, and it is a habit that has not stopped during his cancer treatment. Personal letters sent by the King, 75, to friends since his diagnosis speak of his “somewhat battered health” but are also “full of light”, according to one recipient. The letters describe his “determination” to beat cancer, and according to another pen pal, are “full of exclamation marks” when he writes of his hopes of a full recovery.
A friend says: “I hear determination that he doesn’t want to let it slow him down, a pragmatic acceptance of the changes that have had to be made to his programme, and an absolute desire to get back to full speed.”
The letters, topped and tailed in his famously scrawling handwriting – previous notes were called the “black spider memos” – are further proof of a man who does not want to slow down.
“He has been frustrated, because there is still so much he wants to achieve,” says a source close to Charles of his three-month hiatus from public duties since his diagnosis. “He holds himself to very high standards of public service and genuinely feels he’s letting people and organisations down if he’s not out there doing all those public bits of his formal role.”
A friend puts it more bluntly: “He’s a bloody caged lion, driving everyone round the twist if he’s stuck at home.”
The recent announcement by Buckingham Palace that Charles was returning to some public duties, and that his doctors were “sufficiently pleased with his progress” to allow a summer programme, has eased the King’s impatience at pressing pause on his reign for the past three months. He will, for example, be host next month for a state visit by the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
The Palace has said that the King’s diary in the coming months “will not be a full summer programme”, with the expectation of “a few engagements a week” while he continues with treatment, instead of several a day as he was accustomed to.
But the royal calendar between now and the monarch’s summer holiday in Scotland looks packed, and there are set-piece moments that Charles is determined to attend, health permitting. Top of that list is his hope to travel to Normandy on June 6 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, with the Prince of Wales also expected to join his father in France to honour the fallen.
Those close to the King acknowledge it is a hectic schedule for any septuagenarian, let alone one undergoing cancer treatment, and William is understood to fret about his “workaholic” father’s pace. “He wants to make sure his father is balancing his recovery,” a source close to the prince says. He knows his dad loves work, but he does worry about him.”
Even the Queen, 76, who holds more sway over him than anyone, concedes her efforts only go so far. At a palace reception last week, she said her husband was “really thrilled to be out”, admitting: “I’ve been trying to hold him back.”
In the ornate 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday afternoon, the King and Queen relived some of the most memorable moments of their coronation at an engagement marking a year since their crowning. Standing side by side in front of a video screen, Charles and Camilla watched clips of their procession into Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023 to the sound of a trumpet fanfare and the choir singing VivatRex Carolus! Vivat Regina Camilla!
At the time, the great unknowns were whether the pages of honour might tread on their robes, if the crowns would stay in place and how long the Duke of Sussex would linger before dashing back to California. All those worries now seem so minor, in light of the news earlier this year that both the King and the Princess of Wales are undergoing cancer treatment - two body blows to the monarchy at the start of the new Carolean era.
A friend of the King and Queen says: “This has been the year that nobody could have predicted in any way. Just when you think royal life gets predictable, they both have a crown on their heads, the family is settling into a rhythm, the second son is not letting off too many bombs - and then suddenly an absolute explosion happens to throw up all of your plans.
“That family just has more drama than an episode of EastEnders.”
If there was one thing that seemed to rile the King in the past year, it was a friend’s observation that his steady, cautious approach, favouring stability and continuity rather than obvious change upon his accession, meant Charles was “not moving at enough pace” to establish a meaningful Carolean legacy.
One year after his accession, the friend said: “He needs to be careful he doesn’t end up being just a caretaker king.”
Courtiers harrumphed at the idea, biographers dedicated pages to rebutting the suggestion, but his shock cancer diagnosis did not help the image of a king stopped in his tracks. A friend says: “Monarchs are caretakers, they take care of the role of sovereign and the nation. The continuity of his interests from Prince of Wales to King can sometimes be interpreted as him not changing anything, but the change is hiding in plain sight.
“Look at his speech at Cop28, delivered to presidents and prime ministers [in Dubai in December] - he is recognised as a world leader in that field. Look at the Coronation Food Project he launched on his 75th birthday. He is not just a figurehead. He is driving solutions to the issues that are facing society today, he is there pushing the fight for change, and with no disrespect to the late Queen, he is doing it in a way that she didn’t.”
After three months mostly hidden from view while he underwent the initial stages of treatment, the images and soundbites of Charles last week at his first fully public engagement since his diagnosis were powerful reminders of the impact of his health scare upon him.
With the Queen he visited the Macmillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital in London, where he held the hands of patients undergoing chemotherapy, discussed the use of cold caps to minimise hair loss during treatment and told a fellow cancer sufferer: “It’s always a bit of a shock, isn’t it, when they tell you?”
As one royal watcher there noted: “This was not really the King meeting the public, sovereign meeting subject, this was patient and patient, discussing cancer as equals.”
A friend of the King says: “There’s a real sense that although there have been huge challenges for him to deal with on a personal level, it has been an accelerator for embedding him deeper in the hearts of the British people. Most people who have been affected by cancer will have found a way to connect with him, and find him more relatable.
“The Queen has also stepped up in his absence, and the estimation in which she is held has risen with some people. While nobody would wish this scenario on them, it’s an unexpected but positive consequence.”
Charles’s summer schedule begins on Wednesday when he is due to attend the first Buckingham Palace garden party of the season. He may also meet Prince Harry the same day, who will be in London for a service at St Paul’s Cathedral marking the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games.
On May 20, Charles plans to be at the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show, where he is keen to visit the King’s Foundation show garden. On June 7 – the day after the D-Day trip to France – he hopes to be at the wedding of his godson, the Duke of Westminster, who will be married at Chester Cathedral in what will be the society wedding of the year.
On June 15, he is determined to be at Trooping the Colour, though aides say reports that he may ride on the parade “would be on the ambitious scale of what is possible”.
On June 17, he wants to lead the annual traditional procession of royal knights and ladies of the Order of the Garter at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, and on June 18, five days of racing gets under way at Royal Ascot. Late June will see the pomp and ceremony of the Japanese state visit, and the first week of July will take Charles to Holyrood Week, the monarch’s traditional annual trip to Scotland.
Some royal watchers have pondered whether Charles might be pushing himself too hard, to keep building a legacy beyond that of a monarch who started, then stopped and disappeared for a while. A friend says: “Some people might think he is trying to pedal twice as hard because he is conscious that time is running ahead of him, but he’s like that any way. His downtime away from public life has been used productively, enabling him to keep thinking about the things he wants to get on with.”
Top of that list are his “four Cs": climate, community, culture and Commonwealth, with the environment still “first and foremost” in his mind. An aide says: “He continues to want to keep that work going within the constitutional guardrails.” Climate change and the environment will be high on the agenda during the Japan state visit and higher still at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Samoa in October, which Charles and Camilla hope to attend.
While the King will be increasingly visible in the coming weeks and months, the Princess of Wales will not, as she continues with her course of preventative chemotherapy and recuperation at home in Windsor. William, who has prioritised caring for his wife and three young children, will increase his diary of public engagements over the next two months, before the Waleses break for their children’s summer school holidays.
On Wednesday, it is understood he has no plans to see his brother, and will instead be in Windsor to conduct an investiture. On Thursday and Friday, he will head to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. In Cornwall, he will visit the site in Nansledan, a suburb of Newquay, where he plans to build a pounds 3 million social housing development on his land to tackle homelessness, which remains one of his core issues, together with his environmental Earthshot prize and raising awareness around mental health.
This weekend, the King will be putting on his gardening gloves at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire home, reflecting on a year since his coronation that might not have gone to plan, but thanks to modern medicine, after a pause, is enabling him to press play again on his reign. As a friend who knows the King and family well says: “Their mantra is to keep calm and carry on. They have kept calm, they haven’t always been able to carry on, but there are rays over the hill and they’ve managed to keep the ship sailing.”
The Sunday Times
