decline

Last night in London, King Charles and Prince William stepped out for a rare joint appearance at a pre-COP30 event at the Natural History Museum. I covered it separately, analyzing the messaging being sent and talking about William’s plans to travel to Brazil next month. I mentioned that Charles looked like hell at the event. He seemed perky enough at Windsor Castle last month, when he hosted the Trumps for their state visit. But Charles had a very busy summer overall, and you can tell just by looking at him that he’s not well-rested or in the best of health. Well, in his Royalist Substack, Tom Sykes wrote about Charles’s appearance, weight loss and the palace “coverup” over the king’s health. Some highlights:

Sykes’ horror at Charles’s appearance: I was horrified by photographs that have emerged in the last few hours of the King at a joint engagement with his son, the Prince of Wales, in London for the COP30 climate summit….It’s impossible to look at these images without seeing how much King Charles’s health has declined. The man’s suit is falling off him. The Palace line tonight is that he would have gone to Brazil “if his schedule allowed.” But the truth, as these astonishing new images attest, is that his illness is taking a heavier toll than the institution will admit.

The Orwellian propaganda over the king’s health: Charles has shown extraordinary courage. He has been an example to millions living with cancer, proving that one can keep working, engaging, and enjoying life. In many ways, nothing has animated him more than doing his job of being King. But the attempt to play down the severity of his condition is becoming totally unsustainable. As I have noted before, the BBC and the mainstream British media have been compliant to the Palace’s Orwellian Ministry of Truth-style counter-factual agenda. It’s not just cowardice; they are bound by privacy laws that emerged from the Leveson Inquiry. Under those rules, the media cannot publish details of someone’s health without consent. A senior editor once explained to me that even if they knew the King had bladder cancer—he does not—they could not report it.

Charles tires easily: The intelligence I am getting from sources close to the King is that he remains intellectually sharp and full of enthusiasm, but tires quickly. He is said to sleep far more than he used to. Friends describe him as still “brilliant,” but “exhausted.” The family, especially Camilla, is deeply worried. She herself, I’m told, has had health problems that have made this year especially difficult.

They pump him full of steroids: Still, there has been no question of giving up. The foreign tours to Samoa and Australia went ahead; the grueling domestic day trips, the state dinners, the late-night outings to the ballet and theater appearances, the investitures—he’s done them all. It has been extraordinary (although some have told me that steroids have played a part). But the new images puncture the illusion of inexhaustibility.

Demise-planning: The Palace, meanwhile, is quietly engaged in what it calls “demise planning.” The funeral arrangements have been, as one would expect, refreshed. Those of us whose reading extends beyond the work of the royal rota know, for example, that Harry and Meghan will not be excluded; in fact, they will be invited to play a “prominent” role when the day comes.

Why it’s important to talk about Charles’s health: This all underscores a point I’ve made before: Discussing the death of a king is a legitimate matter of public interest. The hereditary principle demands it; and now that Charles has told us he has cancer, and his aides have admitted it is incurable, it is frankly an insult to intelligence to try and suppress reporting of it. Charles himself—his condition, his mortality—is the key to understanding everything that is happening in the royal family right now: Harry’s urgency to reconcile, William’s resistance to that reconciliation, the tension between the brothers over how their father’s legacy will be managed.

The other royals are thinking about Scooter King’s reign as well: Camilla—tolerated by William for stability, but never loved—faces the classic dowager questions: what house, what purse, what power? That, in turn, helps explain the pressure on Prince Andrew to vacate Royal Lodge. I’m told Andrew aims to “run out the clock,” calculating that evicting a stubborn prince from a crumbling palace will drop down William’s list of priorities when the reign changes.

[From The Royalist Substack]

I actually appreciate that Sykes slipped in those two nuggets of gossip about Camilla. Camilla has been especially quiet for months, and whenever we see her, she also looks like she’s in terrible health. Camilla is likely dealing with her own health issues, but she expects to survive her husband and so she’s also preparing for the Mad Scooter King’s reign and how he’ll deal with her. I imagine Charles has also made some financial preparations for Camilla too, don’t you think? The Dowager Queen Consort is going to shuffle off to Ray Mill and that will be that. I also agree with Sykes that everything being done by Harry, William, Camilla, and the rest of the family should be seen through the prism of Charles’s worsening condition.

Sykes also went off on the same old tangent about Harry wanting to make a “deal” with Charles before it’s too late (I didn’t include it in these excerpts because it’s stupid). It never occurs to these royalists that Harry simply wants to reconcile with his father because despite everything, Harry just loves his dad and wants to spend time with Charles before the end. Harry is the only one putting a time frame on it too – he seemed to indicate to the Guardian that he believes Charles really only has a year left.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.