King Charles celebrated his last night as a 75-year-old by attending the Gladiator II premiere in Leicester Square on Wednesday. He looked to be in good spirits, warmly shaking the hands of cast members Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. Perhaps there was a sense of relief at the year being over: it is unlikely he will look back on it with great fondness.
The King’s three-quarter century, and his second year as monarch has been marked by family tragedies, a series of health scares and royal relationship rifts. His son Prince William has described the year as “brutal”, and it may go down in the history books as something of an annus horribilis.
The first signs of a troublesome year bubbled up soon after King Charles’s 75th birthday in November last year. Royal writer and Meghan Markle loyalist Omid Scobie had published a book that summer called Endgame, which was about the Sussexes “finding freedom” away from the firm.
At one point in the book, there is mention of a discussion in the Royal Family about how dark the skin of Meghan and Harry’s baby would be. This was something Markle had mentioned in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, but the names of the family members in question were never disclosed. However, in a Dutch reprint of Scobie’s book, there was a line in there which alleged it was the King and Princess Catherine who had had this conversation. Scobie insisted it was a publishing error and this led to the book being pulled and pulped, but not before the revelation went nuclear. When asked if they would pursue legal action, the palace responded that it was "exploring all options", though as far as we know no further action has been taken. Weeks later, Scobie admitted that he had named the pair in an earlier draft of the book.
A series of health blows were to follow. In January of this year, King Charles went into the London Clinic for an operation. Weeks later, Buckingham Palace announced that “during the King’s recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted.”
Doctors identified a “form of cancer” and the King was advised to postpone his public duties. Days later, he spoke of his “lifelong admiration” for cancer charities and offered “heartfelt thanks” for the the messages of support which flooded in. The King was praised for being candid about the condition with his enlarged prostate, with royal commentators remarking that it felt like a departure from Queen Elizabeth’s adhesion to the “never complain, never explain” mantra.
Around that time, frenzied speculation was building online on the whereabouts of Kate Middleton. On January 17th, the palace released a statement saying that the princess had been admitted to hospital for “planned abdominal surgery,” which was successful. The statement added that she would be unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter.
“The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate. She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.” Nonetheless, rumours began to swirl online that there was more to the story. The hashtag #whereskate trended for weeks on X and there was even a website set up which tallied the days since the Princess of Wales had been seen in public. Various conspiracy theories spread online that the Princess’s absence from the spotlight was in fact due to an undisclosed health condition. A handful of paparazzi shots of the Princess were published in that time, but all of them were blurry and some tin hat conspiracists even thought they might be body doubles.
The hysteria reached fever pitch on March 10th when the Waleses released a mother’s day image of the Princess with her three children. No doubt the smiley family photo was intended to quell the rumours, but it had the opposite effect. Online sleuths began pointing out oddities in the image: Charlotte’s missing sleeve, broken patterns on Louis’ jumper, and strange blurry spots. Then news agencies like AP fuelled the flames by issuing a “kill order” for the photo, after they found it had been doctored. In a rarely seen move for the Royal Family, the Princess was forced to release a statement online, admitting she had photoshopped the picture.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused,” she wrote.
A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales pic.twitter.com/5LQT1qGarK
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 22, 2024
The theories were put to bed at the end of March, when Middleton announced her cancer diagnosis. Like the King, doctors had found cancer while performing a separate operation, and the Princess would undergo preventive chemotherapy. The Princess recently announced that after nine months of treatment, she is cancer-free.
In an interview, Prince William described it as “probably the hardest year in my life” but said he was “so proud” of his wife and father “for handling the things that they have done.”
Meanwhile, relations with Harry show no sign of thawing. There was speculation that the King and the Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnoses might prompt a reconciliation between the family, but Harry is still very much living his own life separate from “the firm” in California with Meghan Markle and their two children.
While the last twelve months have been a test of the Royal Family’s resilience, things do seem to be brightening up. Both King Charles and Princess Catherine have resumed public duties, and there have been some heartwarming images which illustrate a new style of reign, including a bamboozled looking King being bear hugged by the New Zealand women’s rugby team. Perhaps the King’s 77th trip around the sun will be an annus mirabilis.
