The Firm IS IN CRISIS

The ongoing challenges facing the monarchy cast a stark light on the current fragility of the Royal Family. Royal biographer Emily Andrews explains why it is crunch time

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Just a year ago, the future of the Royal Family looked bright. It may have been pouring with rain on that May coronation day, but inside the flower-filled Westminster Abbey, King Charles, Queen Camilla, the Prince of Wales and a radiant Princess of Wales, plus George, Charlotte and Louis, all shone.

The loss of Queen Elizabeth, a colossus in our national psyche, culture and politics, was keenly felt, but the transition from mother to son felt calm, orderly and even celebratory.

Yet now, the royals appear vulnerable. Just when they expected 2024 to be a year of 'quiet consolidation' (a courtier told me), charity visits and foreign tours to the Commonwealth, such as Australia, Canada and Samoa, two of their main players have been sidelined from royal duties due to cancer treatment.

Health shock

It was a shock when it was first announced that the Princess of Wales had undergone planned abdominal surgery and would be out of action until at least Easter; and even more shocking when Kate made her video message to the nation saying she had cancer. For a seemingly fit and healthy 42-year-old to be enduring a course of chemotherapy (even if, as she told us, it was preventive) felt as heartbreaking as considering how she had to tell her children George, Charlotte and Louis.

And King Charles' own cancer diagnosis, revealed in February, his withdrawal from public duties, plus the Prince of Wales' lighter schedule (to support his wife and children) added to concerns about the slimmed-down Royal Family's ability to continue its duties.