Is the King working too hard? Camilla wants him to slow down a bit but Charles has other ideas, writes REBECCA ENGLISH
The King waved happily as he drove off to spend the weekend at his beloved Highgrove retreat yesterday, after assuring his concerned family that he was doing well.
The King waved happily as he drove off to spend the weekend at his beloved Highgrove retreat yesterday, after assuring his concerned family that he was doing well.
Smiling, Charles, 76, made a point of putting down his car window so he could be seen by the crowds as he left Clarence House for a long weekend in the country after being hospitalised on Thursday suffering side effects from his ongoing cancer treatment.
Sources have insisted to the Mail that the incident was a ‘minor bump’ in His Majesty’s ‘very positive road to recovery’.
However, some family members – particularly his wife, the Queen – have also urged him again to ‘slow down’ in light of this latest ‘blip’.
Camilla, 77, has made no secret of her frustration that he’s continued his punishing schedule throughout the last year. She has frequently told well-wishers that while her husband ‘is doing fine’ he ‘just won’t listen and do what he’s told!’
A source says: ‘She understands her husband better than anyone and knows he isn’t happy unless he is working. But she wishes, for his sake, he would just slow down a bit.’
It is a concern shared by other family members, including his son, Prince William.
King Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in January last year after routine surgery for an enlarged prostate discovered evidence of the disease.
King Charles walks down the stairs next to Queen Camilla at a reception to mark the launch of the Queens reading room medal at Clarence House on March 25, 2025 in London, England
Despite his cancer diagnosis, King Charles is maintaining his usual punishing schedule as he is seen here waving to well wishers after attending an exhibition at Somerset House on Wednesday
King Charles shows his familiar bonhomie as he greets a guest at a reception at Buckingham Palace in London
Buckingham Palace has not disclosed what form of cancer he has, nor the treatment he has received.
A source said: ‘It’s partly a question of his privacy and partly because we all know what happens when people start asking Dr Google about what a particular prognosis is.
But it is also because the King genuinely feels incredibly positive and wants to be able to reach out with his message about living and working with the disease to people with all different types of cancers, receiving all different types of treatments, not just his own.’
Indeed, the Mail understands that His Majesty is, for the foreseeable future, a person ‘living with cancer’.
He is receiving regular – mainly weekly – treatment to ensure that his personal battle has the ‘best possible outcome’, although his medical team are able to comfortably pause it as they did when he travelled to Australia and Samoa last year.
On Thursday he had undergone this routine treatment ahead of a busy afternoon of meetings when he began to feel unwell, suffering what the palace described as ‘temporary side effects’.
He required a short period of observation in hospital and left The London Clinic, where he was initially diagnosed last year, by car yesterday afternoon to recuperate at Clarence House.
It is understood that he enjoyed dinner with his wife and was back ‘working away as usual’ in the evening.
While the Queen is keen for Charles to slow down, the King himself appears to have other ideas
However, on the advice of his doctors, Buckingham Palace decided to cancel several official audiences that afternoon, as well as a day of engagements in Birmingham on Friday.
A source said: ‘Physically, he probably could have done Birmingham but, as you might expect, the palace is taking a safety first approach.
He has had some side effects this week and it was just decided to adjust his diary so he can take a little longer to feel better.’
The King had always intended to spend this weekend at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire estate, before its gardens re-open to the public next month for charity.
He adores spending time pottering about the estate, which has been a lifelong labour of love, pruning, mending fences and collecting eggs from his brood of rescued battery hens.
Staff say they often arrive for work in the morning to find a sheaf of Post-it notes full of ideas and requests, all scribbled down in his familiar scrawl.
He has private meetings at Highgrove on Monday but is likely to return to public duties next week, though staff may ‘tweak’ his diary slightly in anticipation of the busy state visit to Italy, beginning on April 7, which is still going ahead.
The Queen also left London for the weekend and is likely to be spending it nearby at her private home in Wiltshire.
‘Honestly, he’s fine. He’s been on the phone with staff all morning and has been laughing and joking,’ another source added. ‘It’s a reminder of what he is going through away from the spotlight, but there is no drama.’
Just this week, among the many engagements he held, the King invited 400 journalists and members of the regional media for a reception at Buckingham Palace.
‘Everyone was saying how well and happy he looked – and you surely couldn’t have got much past a room full of reporters!’ joked one member of staff.