King Charles had a cancer scare ‘years’ ago & never disclosed any of it

It looks like royal biographer Robert Hardman was tasked with a desperate rewrite – if not a complete reimagining – of the past year for the Windsors. 2024 was the year the wheels truly came off the Windsor bus, although one could argue that same thing with the year 2020 and 2021 (and 2022 and 2023). Look, maybe it’s been a slow-motion trainwreck for five years, okay? Back to Hardman, he’s added chapters to his biography of King Charles, and in addition to Hardman clutching his pearls over what he thinks was the media’s “performative” outrage over Kate Missington and the Curious Case of Manipulated Photos, he also wants everyone to quake with sympathy for poor Charles. Poor Charles and his profiteering from public services, poor Charles and his emotional abuse of his first wife, but no – poor Charles and his health. Apparently, Charles had a never-before-disclosed “cancer scare” years ago.

Charles went to his Highgrove chapel when he was diagnosed with cancer: In good times and bad, as both Prince of Wales and now as King, Charles III likes to retreat to his ‘sanctuary’, his tiny chapel in the grounds of Highgrove, to gather his thoughts. ‘He was feeling his mortality,’ says his old university friend, Lord Chartres, former Bishop of London, who had been invited to the King’s Gloucestershire home to celebrate Holy Communion with a congregation of just three: the King, the Queen and Lady Chartres. Even if the tiny Hobbit-style refuge had been able to accommodate more that day, they would not have been welcome. It was February 25 this year, just three weeks since the King had received a diagnosis of cancer. With his treatment still in the early stages, his doctors wanted the risk of infection kept to a minimum. That meant no crowds.

Charles’s relationship with God: He was certainly not praying for some sort of miracle, Richard Chartres reveals. ‘Quite a lot of religion is bargaining with God: ‘You do this and I’ll continue to pay attention to you’ and so on,’ he says. ‘The King doesn’t have that sort of relationship.’

The statement about the king’s prostate: ‘The King and Clive [private secretary Sir Clive Alderton] thought carefully about how open he was going to be. They agreed very quickly that it would make sense to be open, though, of course, this is a house that hasn’t traditionally done that. So this was definitely a ‘change point’ in that regard,’ says a senior member of staff. The King’s candour was driven, primarily, by medical data. ‘We looked up the number of people who suffered from this and it’s something that affects so many men over 60. The King wanted to encourage other men to seek treatment.’

Kate & Charles left the London Clinic on the same day, they swear: The King, accompanied by the Queen, left through the front in the State Bentley – designed for optimum visibility – waving cheerfully at onlookers. The Princess left unobserved through a back door. The two royal patients then returned home – the King to Sandringham, the Princess to Adelaide Cottage at Windsor – to convalesce. The rest of the family, meanwhile, started to resume regular engagements.

Why Charles publicly spoke about his cancer: Says a senior aide: ‘Cancer is a very scary word if you’re a king or anyone else. It’s a big shock. But he is a great one for taking things on the chin and then saying, ‘Right. How are we going to get on with this?’ He was very clear that he would carry on doing all of the constitutional stuff in exactly the way that he did before.’

He previously had a cancer scare: Besides, one former member of the team from his Prince of Wales days reveals that the King had actually undergone a cancer scare some years before. As for announcing the news of the King’s condition, there had been very little internal debate. ‘After the earlier announcement about his prostate, it was actually an easy decision to say, ‘Well, that’s what we do these days’,’ says a member of the King’s staff. ‘We didn’t hang about because we all felt that the country does have a right to know about this – though not in forensic detail.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I’ve gone back and forth for months about whether the smarter play for Charles would be identifying what kind of cancer he has and explaining his treatment. I think his initial statement – leaving out the type of cancer – was an okay first step, PR-wise. But the longer this goes on, it feels strange that Charles hasn’t just come out and said, I have bladder cancer (which is the rumor going around London) and this is what my treatment entails, information is power, etc. The constant squirreliness and obsessive secrecy of the Windsors leaves a lot of people cold. Especially now that we’ve started to get glimpses past the gilded lily – these people are slumlords bilking taxpayers and public services, and they want to keep a lot of sh-t secret because they know it will destroy the monarchy. But sh-t like their health issues? I honestly don’t understand why Charles and Kate haven’t both disclosed a lot more.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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20 Responses to “King Charles had a cancer scare ‘years’ ago & never disclosed any of it”

  1. Tessa says:

    No way would Kate have gone to Adelaide Cottage to convalesce. It was probably to a larger residence. She would have had a nursing staff to take care of her. And a place for them. not in the smaller Adelaide cottage.

  2. Tessa says:

    Charles is so cold. Going through this sort of thing should have inspired him to make amends with Harry and publicly apologize to both Harry and Meghan

    • LRB says:

      I agree when you are faced with your mortality usually you think about the people who really matter to you… and Charlie couldn’t even be bothered to make time for Harry.

  3. Jais says:

    Who are these Chartres people? Random aristo friends? And from what I recall, a large plant left the hospital. No sign of Kate. KP being squirrelier than BP has conveniently benefitted Charles.

    • Jan90067 says:

      Not just “no sign”, but there were multiple articles about her brother and sister going on family vacations (him to the mountains, and pics of Pip on the beach in multiple bikinis). This is a “supposedly verrrrrry close” family, right? If my sister just had major surgery and was told she had cancer, there’s no way I’d be off on a holiday like those two. Just sayin’ …..¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  4. Jan90067 says:

    Yeah… I’m not buying the shit they’re shoveling. This (and the other kiss-up articles lately) is ALL to garner sympathy and change the bilking/slumlord headlines. It’s just *too* convenient IMO.

    The holidays are just around the corner, and you just know it’s going to be “Poor, poor, pitiful Charles: he’s being SNUBBED, SNUBBED I TELL YOU, by MEGHAN and Harry, who are *cruelly* withholding their children from CANCER STRICKEN Charles!”

    Ugh….

    • Snuffles says:

      Honestly, that’s what I’m leaning towards. It’s all a scam. To garner sympathy for the royal racists. To try to pull focus from the Sussexes. To try and sucker Harry into coming back to
      “save” the monarchy. A sloppy job in a desperate attempt to rewrite history.

  5. Maybe they don’t disclose because they don’t have cancer but decided to hide behind it because they were the royal racists. The timing does fit. Just my opinion.

    • Beverley says:

      I’ve been confident from the get-go that the cancer story (at least for KKKhate) was a lie to distract from being named one of the Royal Racists.

  6. VilleRose says:

    I’m okay with not knowing the intimate details of Charles’s and Kate’s cancers. I think Kate has been less transparent than Charles. Charles has been transparent that he has cancer and is still seeking treatment. We don’t know what stage of cancer he’s at but I don’t think his cancer is curable.

    Kate’s messaging has been confusing about whether she actually had cancer and if the cells found were actually cancer or just pre-cancerous. We know she had chemo and finished it but given Charles has been more visible than her this past year, I think there’s more than just cancer going on (as in her marriage to William is on the rocks). Everyone is entitled to their privacy when it comes to health but if you’re a royal public figure, I do think the public has a right to know the broad strokes of what is going on. But we don’t need to know everything, just my two cents.

  7. Harla says:

    I’m not convinced that Charles is receiving chemo but instead is getting an alternative, holistic treatment, I’m interested to see how that works out for him.

  8. Pretty says:

    He did everything right PR wise regarding his cancer. Kate and William should have done the same. I don’t think je need to disclose more of it unless some new developments.

  9. Hypocrisy says:

    So is this cancer related to the first cancer? His decline is showing rapidly in his photos so I think it’s fair to be told his diagnosis and prognosis especially if it’s a metastasized cancer. It shouldn’t shock anyone that this man or anyone in that family is dishonest especially about health issues lol.. if you are you should read up on that families history😉

    • Brassy Rebel says:

      This disclosure of a previous “scare” (whatever that means 🤔) does raise the issue of whether this cancer is primary, a recurrence, or metastasis. And why is this the first we’re hearing about an earlier cancer “scare”? They’ve just raised more questions.

  10. Lauren says:

    The more we learn about the Windsors the more I wonder if Charles wasn’t just emotionally abusive to Diana

  11. ML says:

    I actually think KC has been open enough about his health. He looks like he’s got major health issues, he still shows up, I don’t need to know more details–I’m okay with the amount of transparency there.

    Concha Calleja said at thr beginning of the year that Kate had been in a coma, and this has never really been disproven. If it has anything to do with the K may have had cancer is also uncertain. And then there’s the slightly different face, but not in a cosmetic way. And the thinness. And weird messaging from weaving W stating that she was healthy, to the Frankenphoto, to the Bench video to the shampoo commercial love story. Nothing adds up and everyone is acting squirrelly there.

  12. Monika says:

    All the stories (Willi’s “brutal” year, Windsor’s burglary made public after a few weeks, Charlie’s previous cancer scare) recently coming out to garner sympathy for RF. I am wondering if this has something to do with the investigation into Charlie’s and Willi’s finances.

  13. Blithe says:

    I totally get why they haven’t disclosed more details, although I think Charles has handled it well, while Kate has made a total mess of it. Underneath all of the racism and arrogance and generational pathology, they are still people (I guess) with illnesses that may not have great outcomes. The last thing someone battling a serious illness with an uncertain prognosis needs would be seeing daily headlines in the tabloids detailing statistics and treatment methods — and that’s what would happen.

    • sunnyside up says:

      I agree although I do think that Kate is taking the micky now, only appearing at a few very selective events, she is supposed to have finished chemo in September, hard to believe that she still feels unwell.

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