With Princess Kate and King Charles Battling Cancer, the Monarchy Has Never Felt More Fragile

when king Charles was crowned just over a year ago, nobody, not even the king himself, could have predicted the first year of his reign would play out as it has.

 Just nine months after his coronation, watched by some 400 million people around the world, in a coincidence as bizarre as it was unprecedented, the monarch and his beloved daughter-in-law the Princess of Wales were both admitted to the same London hospital within days of one another. And then the one-two punch of why: Despite initial assurances that neither condition was believed to be cancerous, the palace announced that Charles had in fact been diagnosed with cancer, and after several weeks of brutal speculation and online conspiracy theories, Kate had too

 The earlier hospitalization announcements, released to the public just hours apart, were only part of what would eventually come out. Where the king was concerned, the palace did not specify which type of cancer, only that it was not prostate, and explained that the monarch would take a break from public engagements while he received outpatient treatment. 

The princess’s situation seemed different from the outset. At first, the public learned that she’d spend up to two weeks at the London Clinic after undergoing “planned” major abdominal surgery and would return to her duties around Easter. Pressed, the palace announced the unspecified condition was “noncancerous.” But while she was recovering, Princess Kate received the shocking news that she too had cancer...Read more