King Charles has navigated his cancer journey with unprecedented honesty for a member of the Royal Family.
The monarch, 77, who was diagnosed in 2024, first revealed his health struggles after he underwent treatment for an enlarged prostate.
Six weeks later, a statement issued on behalf of the King confirmed a ‘separate’ form of the disease had been discovered
It was a deviation from the Palace protocol that was followed when his grandfather, George VI, was diagnosed with lung cancer, royal biographer Robert Hardman claimed.
‘No previous bulletin on the health of a sovereign had ever been quite so frank,’ Mr Hardman wrote in his landmark biography of the King. ‘George VI’s cancer was so wreathed in euphemisms that even he was not fully aware of his own condition.’
It was also a stark departure from policy during the reign of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, who believed matters concerning the health of royal family members must be handled discreetly.
It meant that not a soul was aware that Charles, then Prince of Wales, had experienced a cancer scare years before his 2024 diagnosis.
After Charles ascended the throne, both he and the Princess of Wales – who is in remission from cancer – have shared their personal experiences in the hope of inspiring preventative action and fostering a sense of solidarity.
King Charles has navigated his cancer journey with unprecedented honesty for a member of the Royal Family – but he had a secret cancer scare ‘years before’ the 2024 diagnosis
The double cancer diagnoses hit straight at the heart of the Royal Family when Charles and Kate were admitted to The London Clinic in Marylebone at the beginning of 2024.
While Kate underwent ‘planned abdominal surgery’, Charles received treatment for a ‘benign prostate enlargement’.
After the King and Princess of Wales were discharged from the hospital, it was ‘royal business as usual’ at Buckingham Palace.
Mr Hardman revealed how the rest of the family continued their planned engagements, noting Queen Camilla ‘cancelled nothing’.
There was a flurry of activity as Camilla marked the centenary year for Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House at Windsor Castle, travelled to Bath for a charity event, and inaugurated a Maggie’s cancer care centre at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Camilla always kept the focus of these events on the host and guests, but when someone ‘ventured’ to ask about the ‘boss’, her reply was always the same.
With a smile, she would tell well-wishers: ‘He’s getting on, he’s doing his best.’
Mr Hardman suggested the royal family was keeping up appearances while trying to reassure Britons of stability after Charles and Kate’s double health scare at the start of the New Year.
The monarch, 77, who was diagnosed in 2024, first revealed his health struggles after he underwent treatment for an enlarged prostate. After he was discharged from the hospital, it was ‘business-as-usual’ for the rest of the royal family, including Queen Camilla (pictured), which made the cancer announcement a ‘genuine shock’, according to biographer Robert Hardman
This is why Charles’s cancer announcement triggered a ‘feeling of genuine shock’ across the country when the diagnosis was made public on February 5, the royal biographer continued.
The statement explained that a ‘schedule of regular treatments’ was underway after the procedure for ‘benign’ prostate enlargement had revealed a ‘separate’ form of cancer.
All public-facing duties were postponed while the King remained ‘wholly positive’ about the future, the message read.
Mr Hardman praised Camilla’s sense of duty as he noted the Queen did not betray her ‘personal’ connection to the disease when she visited Royal Free Hospital until Palace aides and officials had agreed to a plan.
A member of staff told the author: ‘The secret was not out.
‘So she had to go to a Maggie’s cancer care centre to see patients and their relatives without being able to let a crumb drop that she had a personal stake in this.’
The last British monarch who was diagnosed with cancer was King Charles’s grandfather, George VI, who died from the disease in 1952 as Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne.
‘Cancer is a very scary word if you’re a king or anyone else,’ Mr Hardman recalled a senior aide telling him.
Although the diagnosis had come as a ‘big shock’, Charles – then the Prince of Wales – had endured a cancer scare some years prior that no one knew about until Mr Hardman’s biography was published. Pictured: Charles during his video address last December when he revealed his cancer treatment would be scaled down in the new year
The royal author shared an insider’s account of how the Palace ‘handled’ Charles’s diagnosis and the issue of how it would be communicated to the public without stirring panic and speculation.
This process began with a ‘very matter-of-fact meeting’, he continued.
Charles was typically practical as he assessed ‘the things that will now have to be programmed in’ while receiving treatment.
Although the diagnosis had come as a ‘big shock’, Charles – then the Prince of Wales – had endured a cancer scare some years prior that no one knew about until Mr Hardman’s biography was published.
Coupled with his ‘close involvement’ with cancer organisations and charities, his own experiences had given Charles a ‘deeper understanding of the disease than most’, the author wrote.
Elsewhere in the book, Mr Hardman wrote that Charles’s stoic approach was not without frustrations.
Charles felt the weight of his illness after he received the diagnosis so soon after becoming King.
‘He is frustrated,’ Mr Hardman recalled Charles’s friend, Lord Chartres, telling him.
‘He has begun to inhabit the role for which he was preparing for so long, and that has released all sorts of things in him, while he is still very understandably concerned about the maintenance and continuation of things he loves.’
Charles was the Prince of Wales for a historic 64 years before he became Britain’s King following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022.