King Charles' friends offer rare cancer update
the reams of people he employs to prune his perennials are busy grumbling in the shrubbery about their rotten wages and an allegedly finickity boss.
The whole thing is about as interesting as a stale Duchy oatcake except for the fact that tucked away in the stories and counter stories about His Majesty's supposed garden gulag are scarce, fresh details about his health.
It's been 17 months now since the King announced to the world he has cancer and nearly every week since then he has undergone treatment in London. Buckingham Palace's handling of an unwell sovereign has seen them craft something of a patchwork strategy of flashes of emotional honesty and vulnerability, like him about the 'frightening' experience of a cancer diagnosis, with an absolute blackout on any actual details, like what sort of cancer he has.
As of this weekend, it is 520 days and counting since he announced his shocking diagnosis.
However in the last week, as Gardengate has struggled to even hold the staunchest of royal obsessives' interest, various regal friends have been tattling to the press, offering updates on how His Majesty is going.
To sum it all up: Knackered.
One friend of Charles', weighing on the Great Secateur Scandal, told The Daily Beast 's Tom Sykes that 'He is exhausted. It is tricky because he is energised by the work, but he needs to take a break. Camilla wants him to slow down, but he won't.'
Richard Kay, who used to enjoy private tete-a-tete's with Diana, Princess of Wales, offered a similar take, writing about how His Majesty's ongoing cancer treatment has affected his usual intense routine. Writing in the Daily Mail he revealed, 'not only does it restrict his visits to the countryside but also means he doesn't have the energy he used to.'
This image of a drained, depleted Charles can hardly be one the Palace would welcome having worked, for nearly a year and a half now, to present the picture of the King powering on, business-as-usual-what-ho-ing. After an initial two months-ish period in early 2024 that saw him restrict public appearances, the King has since then maintained a relatively normal schedule, opening parliament and wearing his best ermine-trimmed cape, clocking tours to Australia and the South Pacific, Canada and Italy and hosting French President Emanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte for a State visit.
According to the inimitable Gertrude Daly, who tallies these things, the King has done 289 engagements this year, putting him on track to surpass his tally for 2023, his last pre-cancer year.
However, despite all the keeping calm and carrying on visiting submarine stations, there have been plenty of less bonny signs.
In March, on a visit to Northern Ireland, the King quoted Winston Churchill while chatting to cancer patients saying, 'Keep buggering on.'
A week later the King was briefly admitted to hospital suffering from adverse side effects of his treatment and then the following month he publicly reflected on the 'daunting and at times frightening experience' of cancer.
Then came a record-scratch moment in May when Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex sat down with the BBC to do some venting and admitted, 'I don't know how much longer my father has'.
The same month Charles and Camilla flew for 15 hours, round trip, for a one-night visit to Canada, redefining the concept of 'whirlwind'. The brevity of the international jaunt underscored the 'extraordinary steps [that] are being taken to protect Charles' recovery' per a Beast report.
Then in June, the Telegraph 's highly connected Camilla Tominey reported that 'The talk now is that [the King] may die 'with' cancer, but not 'of' cancer following a rigorous treatment programme.' Or to put it another way – he might never, as is the case with Kate, The Princess of Wales, go into remission and beat the sucker.
Tominey's bombshell 'essentially confirms longstanding rumours that the king's cancer is considered manageable but ultimately incurable', according to the Beast.
Yet there have been positive signs too. Also in May Charles said, 'I'd like to think I'm on the better side (of my cancer journey)'.
The same month a senior royal aide told the Telegraph that the King was dealing 'incredibly well' with cancer, adding: 'I genuinely see no difference in him. As long as you just do what the doctors say, just live your life as normal as possible … that's exactly what he is doing.'
I've saved the best news for last. That same Tominey report also revealed that 'very tentative planning had begun on his 80th birthday celebrations in 2028' which I interpret to mean a lesser aide is currently trawling the Tatler directory for someone who does a decent line in eco balloon arches.
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