The mood at Buckingham Palace has been “subdued” ahead of King Charles’ admission to hospital this week, according to one insider, with a friend of the king’s adding that his treatment for an enlarged prostate has come as an “unwelcome reminder” of the king’s advanced age, and the inevitably short duration of his reign compared to that of his mother.
A former courtier who remains in contact with old colleagues told The Daily Beast: “The mood at the palace is, unsurprisingly, subdued. The enlargement of the prostate may be benign, but treatment isn’t a small thing. The king could be off games [out of action] for a month or so.”
The palace, of course, have sought to play down the impact of the hospitalization on the king, with sources telling the Daily Telegraph and the Sun that the king will be “raring to go” after the procedure and working from home while recuperating.
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However, the reality is that the longer Charles is absent from public-facing duties, the more calls he will face to accept a wholesale change in pace.
One longstanding friend of the family told The Daily Beast: “Charles is an older man. He was 73 when his mother died, so even if he lives to 100 he is not even close to half of his mother’s reign [70 years]. I’m afraid the prostate problems are an unwelcome reminder of those simple facts.”
The new king has spent the 16 months since Queen Elizabeth’s death in a frenzied blur of activity. Charles, often described as a workaholic by his family, undertook 516 public engagements last year, including 94 abroad.
His wife, Queen Camilla, told well wishers he was “fine” on Monday, but was reported on Tuesday to have told her husband to “slow down a bit” by a source speaking to GB News. A similar narrative was reported by the Sun.
Charles will have no choice but to take his foot off the pedal in the short term, of course. The fact that the king is going in for a procedure, rather than using medication such as inhibitor drugs, which can shrink the prostate within a few weeks, suggests that he might be opting for a treatment such as transurethral needle ablation (which was recently approved by the NHS in the U.K.) or laser therapy. While the bulk of recovery in such cases can often take just a few days to a week, it can take several weeks to fully recover and notice improvement in symptoms.
King Charles and Queen Camilla meet local school children as they arrive at Brecon Cathedral, Wales, Britain, July 20, 2023.
Andrew Matthews/Pool via ReutersSuch minimally invasive procedures are often done on an outpatient basis, so if Charles spends more than one night in hospital it will prompt speculation that he is having more significant surgery, such as a transurethral resection of the prostate, which can require several days of hospital treatment followed by several weeks, even months, of convalescence at home.
It certainly seems like Charles’ team want the public to believe the procedure is minor. One source told the Telegraph: “This sort of procedure is a temporary thing, and then he will be back up and running and very keen to pick up his usual pace…His work ethic is well known. He’s going to be raring to go once he’s had a short period of recuperation.”
Charles said last week that he was sharing his diagnosis to encourage other men to get checked.
His announcement was part of a week of royal medical drama. It came just 90 minutes after Kate Middleton’s team announced she had been admitted to hospital for abdominal surgery and was expected to spend up to two weeks there. On Sunday, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, announced she had skin cancer.
