Everything related to the British royal family, since 2024 began, has been surrounded by the mystery of an Agatha Christie novel. And then there were none (And there were none left), which in Spain was known for decades as Ten little blacks, It would be the perfect title for the successive disappearances from public life of members of the House of Windsor, which have unleashed a torrent of speculation and rumors, especially on social networks. First the Princess of Wales, Catherine (Kate) Middleton, wife of the heir to the throne, William of England, and almost immediately King Charles III withdrew from the scene due to health problems. Later, the heir also announced a pause in his public duties to attend to his wife, who was seen this Tuesday in apparently stolen photos. And even Queen Consort Camilla, who became almost exclusively the representative of the British royal house, has just announced that she is taking a week off outside the country.
“It is an increasingly thick fog of uncertainty. And it fuels rumors on the networks. The problem with offering the media brief informative pills is that they only manage to raise more questions without giving all the answers,” Sean Coughlan, the BBC’s royal affairs correspondent, has summarized the general feeling of the British press.
In mid-January, Kensington Palace – the official residence and name of the office that handles the affairs of the Princes of Wales – announced that Catherine Middleton, 42, had undergone “abdominal surgery.” With such an imprecise description, medical experts consulted by the British media began to speculate, it could be an intervention on the stomach, appendix, kidneys or reproductive system. “The Princess of Wales trusts that citizens understand (…) her wish for her personal medical information to remain private,” the official statement explained. The only thing they wanted to make clear, and this was reported to the BBC, was that it was not cancer.
It was then warned that the Princess of Wales would remain hospitalized for 15 days and would not return to public activity until after Easter (end of March). Her husband Guillermo was applauded in the media when he announced that he would also take some time away from the spotlight to care for his family.
The climate of mystery caused by the lack of information about the Princess of Wales – Kensington Palace even had to react to rumors that Middleton had suffered an induced coma, which they described as “absolute nonsense” – has been partly broken. The American gossip website TMZ has published a photo, apparently stolen, of the princess, with dark glasses with her mother, aboard an Audi 4×4. They were circulating around Windsor, around nine in the morning this Monday (one hour more in mainland Spain), the time of entry to the schools. The British media have not published the snapshot and have respected the request for privacy from the Prince of Wales’ communication team.
To add even more confusion to the evolution of the Princess of Wales, the British Ministry of Defense website announced her presence at a military parade scheduled for June 8. As honorary colonel of the Irish Guard, Catherine Middleton would preside that day over the parade in preparation for Trooping the Colour, the official ceremony celebrating the king’s birthday, which will be on the 15th of that month. The Ministry’s website even sells tickets to attend the event, although Kensington Palace did not want to confirm the presence of the princess in the parade.
The king’s cancer
The most unexpected turn of a year, strange to say the least for the Windsors, had to do with the king’s health. Almost at the same time that Middleton’s operation was announced, Buckingham Palace announced, as something routine and without major importance, that Charles of England was going to be admitted to the same hospital as the Princess of Wales to treat prostate hypertrophy. “Like thousands of men every year, the king has sought treatment for an enlarged prostate. His Majesty’s condition is benign and he will attend the hospital next week for a corrective procedure. “The king’s public engagements will be postponed for a short recovery period,” the statement stated.
But at the beginning of February the news broke. During the intervention, doctors had detected “a form of cancer” in the monarch that had to be treated immediately. The monarch has since disappeared from the scene while he undergoes treatment. Buckingham Palace did not want to specify the type of cancer or whether Charles of England was undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy. The British have seen a video of the king in his working meeting with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, in which the head of state appeared smiling but with a weak voice, and another in which he is seen reading, for a few seconds , one of the more than 7,000 letters of support he has received since he was diagnosed with cancer.
Camila’s work overload
The temporary retirement of the monarch forced his son William to bring forward his return to public activity, to the point that comparisons were made with the final years of Elizabeth II, in which Charles of England increasingly occupied the space that corresponded to his mother on the official scene. All this, despite the fact that Buckingham Palace insisted on pointing out that the king continued to handle official matters, and that it was not even necessary to activate the constitutional mechanism of “state councillors”. By law, Queen Camilla, William of England or Princes Anne and Edward (Charles’ siblings) can replace the monarch in the event of serious illness, incapacity or absence abroad.
The alarms went off on February 27, when William announced, just an hour before the ceremony, that he would not participate “for a personal matter” in the honor mass that the British royal family organized in St. George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, in memory of Constantine of Greece. He was the godfather of the Prince of Wales, and he was scheduled to read a text from the Old Testament during the ceremony. His unexplained absence once again sparked rumors, and Kensington Palace had to come to the fore again to disassociate his absence from Catherine Middleton’s recovery. “We already made it clear in January what the princess’s planned recovery schedule was, and that we would only provide new data if it was relevant. “Those remain the guidelines,” a spokesperson stated.
The ceremony ended up being presided over by Queen Consort Camilla, who in just two months has become the most active member of the Windsors. The overload of work has taken its toll and the monarch has just announced that she is going on holiday outside the country to a sunny place, at least until March 11, when she will preside at the religious service for the Commonwealth at Westminster Abbey.
“I think Carlos himself has told him to take a break. She has not stopped working and she has represented her husband throughout this time. The idea that he takes a few days may be a sign that the king’s treatment is progressing favorably,” British royal biographer Angela Levin told GB News.
William of England is preparing to immediately resume his public duties to avoid a vacuum, but recent weeks have allowed the royal family’s communications team to observe the consequences of its minimal information strategy, in the form of rumors and speculation. and for the monarch to assess whether his plans for a reduced monarchy – with a core of just four main figures – is operational when health problems complicate everything.
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