The king’s health crisis has forced the royals and their servants to consider what the change of reign will look like—and what they want to get done before it happens.
It’s hard to understand almost anything that has happened in the royal story since February 5, 2024—the day King Charles announced to the world he had cancer—unless you are privy to an extraordinary assumption whispered in the corridors of British power.
It is this: When King Charles III ascended the throne, most people expected he would live as long as his mother (96) or father (99). Since his diagnosis with cancer (of a still-unidentified type), few but the most ardent optimists really believe that any more.
Few of us can predict the time of our own deaths, let alone that of someone else’s, and there is no doubt that the king is doing fantastically well in his battle against cancer.
His resilience has been extraordinary, the evidence of this being his forthcoming tour to Australia, kicking off in under two weeks’ time. It has been trimmed and cut back a little but in the dark days of February, when his cancer was announced, few thought he would be jetting off to the Antipodes eight months later.
The combined might of the British medical establishment is throwing everything it has at his disease: cutting-edge treatments and, of course, this being Charles, his beloved herbs and natural healing remedies are all also being deployed.
But even if Charles is ultimately declared to be in full remission, when he broke with centuries of royal tradition and announced he had cancer he fired the starting pistol on what courtiers euphemistically term the “change of reign.”
The planning and positioning for the reign of King William V, necessarily and behind the scenes, began—and it will be very hard to put that genie back in the bottle.
Charles’ family were told the truth: that it was serious. That, of course, is why Prince Harry flew over from California three days later, and that is why the king agreed to meet him.
William also sprang into action. Just days after the news was made public he appointed a new private secretary, Ian Patrick, an experienced former diplomat who had worked for the Foreign Office for eight years. The implication was clear: William would be stepping up to a bigger, more global role. William’s plans, however, were then brutally knocked aside by his own wife’s cancer diagnosis which forced him to retreat from public life, and international travel, for several months.
Now, of course, with Kate’s recovery, William is back and has a much higher profile than his father, who has spent the last few weeks gathering and conserving his strength for the Australia tour. William will resume long haul international travel when he travels to South Africa in early November for the Earthshot Awards. It promises to be a high-profile affair.
For Harry, the changed potential timeframe for the reign of his father poses particular problems, because for Harry there can be no meaningful rehabilitation, allowing him to maximize his impact as a global social activist, “showing up and doing good,” as he and his team like to say, without a peace deal being hammered out with the institution of his family.
And the truth is Harry is much more likely to be able to make a deal with King Charles III than King William V.
The change of reign won’t really affect wife Meghan Markle, who seems quite happy being implacably at war with the British royal family.
But speak to sources close to Harry, and it’s quite clear that, his successful monetization of it aside, he is tired of playing a bit part in a narrative of family drama and conflict and would like nothing more than to recover his reputation—and perhaps even become known, in time, as a serious player in the philanthropic world.
One royal source told me that some insiders believe Harry went about cashing in on his family’s secrets in the expectation that he would be able to work his way back into the royal fold because of his father’s affection for his “darling boy.”
“He thought he might have 20 years with his father as the ultimate authority to mend those broken bridges,” the source said. The source added that if a settlement were made with his father, William would not want to waste time or political capital trying to rewrite it when he became king.
When asked if they thought Harry would have written the book he wrote, or have publicly accused members of the family—one of whom was later revealed to be Kate Middleton—of being racist if he suspected Kate might be queen alongside his ‘nemesis,’ King William, a few short years later, the source said, “Exactly the point. I doubt it.”
Executive power and influence is already flowing William’s way.
Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the glossy Instagram video William and Kate published last month to announce her recovery from cancer. It wasn’t signed off by the king, and featured not Charles, but Kate’s parents, Mike and Carole.
Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-charles-cancer-and-king-william-are-rewiring-the-royal-family