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This may be one of those years Britain’s royal family will not want to dwell on. Few of the Windsor clan would have anticipated the challenges they’d have to face in the infancy of King Charles III’s reign.
It was perhaps best summed up by his heir apparent, Prince William, who candidly categorized 2024 as “brutal” and probably “the hardest year in my life.”
For Russell Myers, the royal editor of Britain’s The Mirror newspaper, the past 12 months have been astonishing. “It’s been a simply unprecedented time for both the individuals who have had separate health ailments, but also, in a wider sense, (a) really testing time for other members of the family.”
“Certainly, for the King and Princess of Wales to be in hospital at the same time was incredibly rare, but then to be diagnosed with cancer within days of each other was simply extraordinary,” he told CNN.
Myers recalled the hurricane of unfounded, and at times ludicrous, conspiracy theories that swirled around Catherine earlier this year. “In all my years in the job, I’ve never known a period of hysteria like it and a lot of people forgot that at the center was a young mother who had undergone a serious operation and needed time to recover,” he continued.
The King and his daughter-in-law’s diagnoses stunned royal-watchers, but their disclosures also heralded a change in the royal modus operandi.
“We saw a real openness with the royal family that we haven’t seen quite so much of before,” said Lizzie Robinson, a royal journalist for Britain’s ITV News, recalling the Princess of Wales’ video messages and the monarch’s disclosure that he had initially gone to hospital for a corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate.
“He wanted to help raise awareness and was keen to encourage other men who might be experiencing symptoms to get checked. After he made his announcement, there was a significant rise in the searches on the NHS website,” Robinson added. “I think that showed the royal family were maybe taking a more modern approach in the way they deal with some things.”
Amid the health issues, Prince William also took a step back from his royal duties to support his family, leaving the 1,000-year-old institution without three of its most senior members.
“Camilla really kept that royal show on the road for quite a few months,” Robinson said, before adding that she was, of course, supported by other Windsors, including Princess Anne and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.
Myers points out that Queen Camilla “wouldn’t have expected to be front and center of the institution at large.”
He added: “Camilla’s transition over the last couple of decades has been extraordinary because at one point in the not too distant history she was public enemy number one. There were questions over whether she would be accepted by the British public and beyond and now she is this pillar of the institution.”
William returned to public engagements in April and has since deftly juggled his work and personal life. As he picked up extra childcare duties behind the scenes while Kate continued to recuperate, he also twice stepped up to represent the King at state events in France. The pressure on the heir would have been considerable, both personally and professionally.
When he stood shoulder to shoulder with heads of state at the D-Day commemorations in June and again at the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral in December, we got a glimpse of how the monarchy may feel when he eventually takes the crown. He would have been aware of the optics of those moments and considered how he wanted to play them.
Ahead of William’s Notre Dame appearance, a royal source pointed to the “evolution of the Prince of Wales as a global statesman” in the past two years and how this was a further example of him “stepping up onto the world stage to represent the United Kingdom.”
Any heir to a throne must always have their destiny in the back of their minds. But with his father’s reduced travel schedule, William has been getting some practice sooner than he might have imagined.
When they met in Paris, US President-elect Donald Trump said William was “doing a fantastic job,” illustrating the soft power the British royal family still wields.
Challenges for the Windsors weren’t confined to Britain. Across the Atlantic, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex embarked on several trips abroad to Nigeria, Canada and Colombia to promote their charity work, and projects such as Invictus and online child safety. While they weren’t official visits on behalf of the UK government, there was an air of traditional royal tour about them, complete with stately welcomes and meetings with high-profile figures.
The visits illustrated how the couple can operate outside the royal infrastructure and promote their causes and initiatives, while simultaneously demonstrating that they can still draw crowds.
The Sussexes have also continued to push forward with their business endeavors. In March, Meghan returned to Instagram after a six-year hiatus to tease a new lifestyle venture, “American Riviera Orchard.” She then sent out what appeared to be a sample of what was to come – jars of strawberry jam – to friends and influencers, but movement on the project at least in public has stalled in the months since.
Their latest Netflix offering, which gave viewers an inside look at the world of professional polo, received mixed reviews when it was released in December. Meanwhile, Netflix’s mid-year data dump of streaming figures for the second half of 2023 revealed that their “Heart of Invictus” series, which premiered on the platform last August, racked up just 300,000 views, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Sussexes’ stateside projects may appear to have stumbled but one PR expert said you shouldn’t count them out. Peter Mancusi, a crisis management expert and associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University, told CNN the couple wanted to reclaim their own narrative when they relocated to the US and the public was sympathetic to that.
“The next phase was starting all these businesses and things,” he explained. “Sympathy can turn to skepticism very quickly and people can think that you’re doing a little too much to cash in on these family problems.”
The picture of the couple right now is pretty blurry, he said. “I think their challenge is to make it more clear to people what they stand for, what their identity is, and what they’re trying to build going forward.” CNN reached out to the Sussexes about their plans for the year ahead but had not heard back before publication.
Back in England, after being relegated to the shadows following earlier scandals, Prince Andrew had almost managed a quiet 2024. That is, until a High Court hearing revealed his close relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. Yang Tengbo was the co-founder of Pitch@Palace China, an initiative for entrepreneurs Andrew set up a decade ago.
The hearing upheld an earlier decision to bar Yang from the UK, but disclosed that he had been authorized to act on the duke’s behalf during business meetings with potential Chinese investors in the UK, and had been invited to Andrew’s 60th birthday party in 2020. The duke’s office subsequently told British media that the royal had “ceased all contact” when concerns had been raised about Yang. But the developments once again called into question his judgement and the company he has chosen to keep.
“When it comes to the Duke of York, you have to expect the unexpected,” Myers told CNN. “Andrew is simply a problem that will never go away.”
He said it was too early to understand the scandal’s effect on the monarchy but suggested it could be a wake-up call for the duke “that he would be much better completely withdrawing from public life, and any sense that he may have had that there was a route back for him is completely extinguished now.”
By year’s end, King Charles and Queen Camilla had resumed overseas visits, carrying out a 10-day trip to Australia and Samoa. Robinson, who was one of the many royal reporters on the tour, described a “real warmth and appreciation” that they’d made the long-haul journey while Charles was still undergoing cancer treatment.
“Going into 2025 we already know that the King is working on a full overseas tour program as long as there’s doctors’ approval, that Prince William has spoken about how hopefully he and Catherine will have some more trips lined up,” she said. “They will be hoping that things can return to some sort of normal again.”
A palace source told CNN that Charles’ “treatment has been moving in a positive direction” and “will continue into next year.” The source added that this doesn’t reflect any change, development or significant update on details that have already been released.
CNN’s Billy Stockwell contributed to this story.
