King Charles’s cancer treatment is going well and will continue next year, a Buckingham Palace source said, as the British royals prepare for their annual Christmas reunion after a “brutal” year for the family.
In February, the palace revealed that the 76-year-old, who becomes king in 2022, had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer following a corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate.
While he was able to return to public duties two months later, the number of engagements has been limited on medical advice, which is difficult for the noted workaholic.
“His treatment is progressing in a positive direction and the treatment cycle will continue next year as a managed condition,” the palace source said on Friday.
The palace source said there has been no change in Charles’s health and the news that his treatment will continue in 2025 is not a significant update.
But his busy pre-Christmas programme, which will conclude on Friday with a visit to Walthamstow, the north-east London district that sparked huge protests in response to nationwide riots in August, was a sign of his determination to keep busy.
In October, Charles and his wife Camilla took a brief stay in India, where they stayed at a holistic health center following their first major trip to Australia and Samoa since being diagnosed with cancer.
Overall, last year was difficult for the royal families.
The revelation in March that the king’s daughter-in-law Kate, wife of heir apparent Prince William, was undergoing preventive chemotherapy for cancer was another blow.
Although his treatment has now ended, his return to official events has been limited and he said his road to full recovery will be a long one. William said it had been the hardest 12 months of his life and “brutal” for the family.
But it’s not just health issues that have put Windsor in the spotlight. The king’s younger brother Prince Andrew was embroiled in another scandal this month when one of his close business associates was banned from Britain over government suspicions he was a Chinese agent.
The royal finances have also come under media scrutiny, while Charles was heckled by an Indigenous senator in Australia’s Parliament House during his visit, a reflection of ongoing questions about Britain’s colonial past.
Meanwhile, the king’s younger son Prince Harry remains isolated from the family and more royal secrets are likely to be aired when he gives evidence in the witness box in his trial against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group.
Both Harry and Andrew will be absent when the royal family gather for their traditional celebration at the king’s Sandringham home in eastern England, a highly visible display of those problems.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
