How King Charles III Has Carried on Since His Cancer Diagnosis

King Charles III put duty first, even while battling cancer, as the royal family faced an unusual glut of challenges.

Since Queen Elizabeth II‘s death in 2022, King Charles III has spent most of his reign trying to restore long-term confidence in the centuries-old institution that is the British monarchy.

The rest of the senior royals chugged along with him, never officially responding to the slings and arrows flying their way (many of them coming from inside the family) or otherwise wavering from their official duties as a new era got underway.

But knowing the late queen’s adage that she had “to be seen to be believed,” their cause was not helped when dueling cancer diagnoses relegated both Charles and his daughter-in-law Kate Middleton to the bench right when it was more important than ever to be out and about, demonstrating that the royal ship was in steady hands.

Charles has since been deemed healthy enough to resume international travel and Kate has made a handful of appearances since disclosing in March that she was undergoing “preventative chemotherapy.” But evem the reliably stoic Prince William acknowledged to reporters chronicling his trip to Cape Town, South Africa, earlier this month that the unprecedented pile-up of health crises had been “dreadful.”

Royal Family at Trooping the Colour 2024

“I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done,” the Prince of Wales said. “But from a personal family point of view, it’s been…yeah, it’s been brutal.”

Prince Louis, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, King Charles, Queen Camilla, Trooping the Colour 2024

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Business as usual ground to a halt in January: Kensington Palace announced that Kate was going to be out of the public eye while recovering from abdominal surgery until at least after Easter on March 31. Hours later, Buckingham Palace shared that Charles was being treated for an enlarged prostate.

On Feb. 5, six days after he was discharged from the hospital, the palace stated that Charles had been diagnosed with cancer and would be stepping back from public-facing duties while undergoing treatment.

If there was not one more shred of royal news for the rest of the year, that would have been enough of a what-does-this-mean-for-the-monarchy moment. Of course, that is not what happened.

A Timeline of the Kate Middleton Conspiracy Saga

Seven speculation-packed weeks later—during which the palace had to politely shut down a rumor originating in Russia that Charles had died—Kate revealed in an unprecedented March 22 video message that she was in the “early stages” of preventative chemotherapy after post-op tests “found cancer had been present.”

And the first person to applaud her candor—aside from countless civilians on social media—was her father-in-law.

Kate Middleton newspaper announcements, 2024

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The king was “so proud of Catherine for her courage in speaking as she did,” a palace spokesperson told NBC News. Charles had “remained in the closest contact with his beloved daughter-in-law throughout the past weeks” and he and Queen Camilla would “continue to offer their love and support to the whole family through this difficult time.”

Let alone his own difficult time.

While the king was in “good spirits,” nephew Peter Phillips said at the time, he also guessed that his uncle had to be “hugely frustrated.”

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“He’s frustrated that he can’t get on and do everything that he wants to be able to do,” the son of Charles’ sister Princess Anne told Sky News Australia in an interview published March 24 (and given before Kate spoke out). “But he’s very pragmatic. He understands that there’s a period of time that he really needs to focus on himself.”

Which apparently doesn’t come any more naturally to him than it did to his late mother whose commitment to her role remains the stuff of legend and a certain Emmy-winning Netflix drama.

“He is always pushing his staff and everybody, and his doctors and nurses, to be able to say, ‘Actually come on, you know, can I do this? Can I do that?'” Peter said. “So the overriding message would be that he’s obviously very keen to get back to a form of normality. And he’s probably frustrated that, recovery is taking a little longer than probably he would want it to.”

King Charles III’s Road to the Throne

When the palace first shared his diagnosis, no timeline was offered as to how long Charles might be away from the public eye, though from day one it was understood that he still planned to tend to state business behind closed doors. (Incidentally, though the public still doesn’t know what type of cancer he has or what his treatment has entailed, sharing he was ill at all was a relatively transparent move on the palace’s part.)

As expected, his son William, wife, sister and brother Prince Edward all pressed onward as the co-faces of the Firm in Charles’ (and Kate’s) absence.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you also for the kind messages of support for Catherine and for my father, especially in recent days,” William told an audience at an Air Ambulance Charity Gala Dinner in London on Feb. 7. “It means a great deal to us.”

King Charles III, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

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But it was only a couple of weeks before Charles resumed meeting in person with then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who—as seen in a video shared afterward of the usually private appointment—complimented the king on how well he looked as he walked into the Buckingham Palace office on Feb. 21.

“All done by mirrors,” Charles quipped.

More comfortable showing emotion than his impossibly stoic predecessor, the king told the PM (who’s since been replaced by Keir Starmer), “I’ve had so many wonderful messages and cards. It’s reduced me to tears most of the time.”

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Photographers were on hand to capture snippets of Charles at work in Buckingham Palace: Meeting with Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt March 5; on a video call the next day with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau while sitting at the desk that belonged to his late father, Prince Philip; greeting ambassadors from Algeria and Mauritania in the 1844 Room; meeting alums of the Windsor Leadership Trust on March 26.

On March 21, during a two-day trip to Northern Ireland, Camilla told a well-wisher at the Arcadia deli in Belfast, per Hello!, “He was very disappointed he couldn’t come.” And in response to a joke about men not being “the best patients,” Camilla assured, “I try to keep him in order.”

Kate Middleton, Heart Hands Gesture, School Visit, 2023

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Kate Middleton Receives Well-Wishes From Celebs Amid Health Journey

She also became the first-ever monarch’s consort to appear in their spouse’s stead at the Royal Maundy Service on March 28, with Charles expressing his regrets that he couldn’t be there in a prerecorded video message.

“In this country, we are blessed by all the different services that exist for our welfare,” the king said, per a recording shared by NBC News. “But over and above these organizations and their selfless staff, we need and benefit greatly from those that extend the hand of friendship to us, especially in a time of need.”

And Charles knows he needs to be not only hale, but also squarely in the public eye, in order to return the favor.

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Charles and Camilla sat apart from the rest of the congregation at St. George’s Chapel on Easter Sunday to avoid any stress on his health during what was his first public event since his hospitalization.

But less than a month later, the palace said the king would be returning to public duties.

He was at Royal Ascot in June and participated fully in this year’s Trooping the Colour (the official celebration of the monarch’s birthday, despite him being born on Nov. 14, 1948), and he’s been traveling around the U.K.

“I’m not too bad,” he told a well-wisher in August while visiting with families affected by the July 29 knife attack in Southport in which three children were killed during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

King Charles III, Queen Camilla, Royal Easter Service, 2024

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King Charles III and Family Attend Easter Church Service 2024

And during a Sept. 3 visit to the Dyson Cancer Center at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Camilla allowed that her husband of 19 years was “doing very well.”

As for this new era of transparency…

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But actions can speak louder than words, and in October Charles was finally able to make it to Australia with Camilla for their first state visit to the Commonwealth nation since becoming king and queen.

Back at Buckingham Palace hosting a reception for Britain’s 2024 Olympians on Nov. 7, Charles shared that he stays fit with a twice-a-day exercise regimen that incorporates squats and a pull-up bar.

So it sounds as if the 76-year-old king is calmly carrying on with his workouts in hopes of finishing out a year that began on such a low note on an upswing.

Keep reading for a rundown of a-year-and-then-some’s worth of royal news: