Charles, Kate and the changing attitude to royal illness

It was a detail that most novelists or screenwriters would have rejected as being too much. Shortly after yesterday’s announcement that the Princess of Wales will be hospitalised for up to a fortnight after abdominal surgery at the London Clinic, a second proclamation was made. We learnt that King Charles is to attend hospital next week for treatment of an enlarged prostate.

One day, two senior royals, two health conditions. Yet what makes the events newsworthy beyond mere gossip and speculation are the differences – and similarities – in how the stories have made it into the public domain.

Traditionally, the Royal Family’s health issues have been publicised, when they have been at all, with a mixture of euphemism, opacity and downright falsehood. When George VI, a lifelong heavy smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer, not only were his subjects not informed about it, but the King himself was not told the truth about the seriousness of his condition, allowing him to remain in ignorance until he died of a separate cause.