The King will be most concerned for the Queen in the wake of his cancer diagnosis, his closest friends have said. Dame Julia Cleverdon, who served as chief executive of one of the King’s charity organisations when he was Prince of Wales, and Lord Dobbs, a friend of Their Majesties, discussed the repercussions of the King’s health revelation on the rest of the Royal family.
Dame Julia, who worked closely with the monarch while running Business in the Community, said: “The real heroine it seems to me in all of this is Queen Camilla, who he will be most concerned, I suspect, about the effect on her and the conversations and the load that she will take as he goes through his treatment.”
The King began regular treatment at a London hospital on Monday, as an outpatient, but has not revealed what type of cancer he has or what kind of treatment he is undergoing. However, the Palace confirmed that he did not have prostate cancer after the illness was discovered during his corrective surgery for a benign enlarged prostate.
Dame Julia, who was also a special adviser to the Prince’s Charities, the King’s non-profit organisation, is such a trusted friend of the monarch’s that within hours of Princess Diana’s death, he rang her for advice on how to speak to his two sons. She has gradually reduced her workload over the years but at one point was said to speak to the then heir to the throne twice a day. She was appointed DCVO at the personal direction of the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2008.
Dame Julia told the Today programme that the King “loves to work” and will be “very disappointed at the disruption to his plans” from his cancer diagnosis.
“He will be awash with the things that he can’t do as he steps back, but he will be absolutely clear and totally determined to do everything he can to recover fast and well,” she added.
The 73-year-old also hailed the support that the rest of the Royal family has shown him, including his sister the Princess Royal, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Waleses.
“I’m absolutely sure that this reign will continue…and that he will be A, knowledgeable, B, determined and C, absolutely clear that the show will go on,” she said.
