--- title: The Long, Strange History of Secret Royal Ailments description: From Henry VIII to George VI, Kate Middleton, and King Charles, the British royals have often been less than forthcoming on health matters. canonical: https://time.com/6958485/kate-middleton-king-charles-health/ author: Alexander Larman article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-20T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:31.169Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Long, Strange History of Secret Royal Ailments og:description: From Henry VIII to George VI, Kate Middleton, and King Charles, the British royals have often been less than forthcoming on health matters. og:url: https://time.com/6958485/kate-middleton-king-charles-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81896d2e80cb4deb/698a54efdb2987660e26b77c/GettyImages-1906663948.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: The British Royal Family Attend The Christmas Morning Service og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Long, Strange History of Secret Royal Ailments twitter:description: From Henry VIII to George VI, Kate Middleton, and King Charles, the British royals have often been less than forthcoming on health matters. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81896d2e80cb4deb/698a54efdb2987660e26b77c/GettyImages-1906663948.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Long, Strange History of Secret Royal Ailments > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Why There Are So Many Rumors About Kate Middleton [Watch (HLS stream): Why There Are So Many Rumors About Kate Middleton](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XoUxprrH.m3u8) (4:00)  _Published 2024-03-19. As royal observers watch hawkeyed for updates on Kate Middleton’s health and whereabouts, Simeon Yates, a professor of digital culture in the U.K., explains how rumors and speculation about the princess continue to surface._ by [Alexander Larman](https://time.com/author/alexander-larman/) ## Alexander Larman Contributor Larman is books editor at The Spectator, and author of the new 'Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie.' Mar 20, 2024 10:00 AM UTC  Catherine, Princess of Wales, attends the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023 in Sandringham, Norfolk. Catherine, Princess of Wales, attends the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church on December 25, 2023 in Sandringham, Norfolk. Stephen Pond/Getty Images by [Alexander Larman](https://time.com/author/alexander-larman/) ## Alexander Larman Contributor Larman is books editor at The Spectator, and author of the new 'Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie.' Mar 20, 2024 10:00 AM UTC Unless you’ve been underwater, or in space, for the past few weeks, there is no way that you can have avoided the [fantastical stories](https://time.com/6958418/king-charles-iii-appearance-korean-war-event/) that have [proliferated](https://time.com/6958318/kate-middleton-farm-shop-windsor/) about the British royal family. After the simultaneous announcement on Jan. 17 that Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, and King Charles would both be receiving hospital treatment—her for an unspecified “[abdominal complaint](https://time.com/6557370/princess-kate-hospitalized-planned-abdominal-surgery-kensington-palace/)” and he, initially, for an enlarged prostate—interest in both has only grown, thanks to the revelation that the king is now being treated for an [unspecified form of cancer](https://time.com/6691653/king-charles-cancer-diagnosis/) and with the princess’s continued absence from public view. This grew to fever pitch when a [picture put out](https://time.com/6899912/kate-middleton-edited-manipulated-photo/) of her and her children on March 10, intended to dispel conspiracy theories, only made them [proliferate](https://time.com/6900255/royal-family-kate-middleton-trust-media/) when the image was withdrawn from circulation because it had been edited in some mysterious fashion. A subsequent statement from the princess on social media—“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused”—only made her, and the Kensington Palace press operation, look more ridiculous. Even her apparent public reappearance on March 17 at a farm shop near the princess’s home—complete with suspiciously useful public photos and videos—has not silenced the rumors, which have proliferated wildly. Many say that the royals should have stuck to their time-honored dictum of “never complain, never explain.” It has served them well in the past, even if their silence could be interpreted as being positively misleading, if not actively dishonest. Certainly, British monarchs have not always been pictures of health. Henry VIII was grotesquely overweight and riddled with leg ulcers, diabetes, and hypertension, and Charles II apologized for being “an unconscionable time dying” after suffering a fatal apoplectic fit. Edward VII, the so-called “Edward the Caresser,” was afflicted with severe bronchitis, and the cause of George III’s mental illness is still mysterious, even today. More recently, the Queen Mother was afflicted with cancer twice, once in her 60s and once in her 80s, but the news was kept from the public until well after her death in 2002\. Yet it was the decline in the [health of Charles’s grandfather George VI](https://time.com/4560425/king-george-death-the-crown/) that forms perhaps the most affecting strand in my latest book about the Windsors, _Power and Glory_. He was never a hearty man, being affected by a crippling stutter and debilitating gastric problems. He never wanted to become king, a situation forced on him in 1936 by the [abdication](https://time.com/6277500/charles-iii-edward-viii-history/) of his elder brother Edward, and although he was a steady and reassuring presence throughout World War II, the exertion all but finished him. As his official biographer John Wheeler-Bennett put it, “his temperament was not one which facilitated a rapid replenishing of nervous and physical reserves.” By the beginning of 1948, George VI’s health had taken a turn for the worse. He began to complain of severe cramp and numbness. He was suffering from Buerger’s disease, which had been brought on by his heavy smoking, making it difficult for him to walk. By August, he was said to be “in discomfort most of the time,” violently kicking his foot and leg against his desk, in a vain attempt to restore circulation despite his ailment. Professor James Learmouth, Regius Professor in Clinical Surgery, diagnosed arteriosclerosis, brought on by years of heavy smoking, and suggested that it was possible that his right leg would need to be amputated. Yet the press were merely told that “the King was suffering ‘from an obstruction to the circulation through the arteries of the legs,’” and that this had “only recently become acute. In 1949, the King knew that he would be an invalid for the rest of his life. On March 2, he underwent a grueling procedure: a right lumbar sympathectomy operation, intended to restore blood supply to his leg by cutting a nerve at the base of the spine, and therefore give him a degree of movement again. It was a success, and by July George was able to perform investiture ceremonies, leading those around him to hope he was recovered. Yet in the early summer of 1951, X-rays indicated that he had cancer on his left lung. To avoid worrying him, he was told that it was pneumonitis, a less serious form of pneumonia, and the euphemism “structural changes” was deployed. He eventually had to have his lung removed, on Sept. 23, 1951, which he bore stoically, saying “if it’s going to help me get well again I don’t mind but the very idea of the surgeon’s knife again is hell.” The procedure seemed to be successful at first, and a bulletin was released to the public that “The King underwent an operation for lung resection this morning. Whilst anxiety must remain for some days, His Majesty’s immediate post-operative condition is satisfactory.” But those around the monarch knew that it was impossible for him to make a full recovery. His health appeared to stabilize for a short time at the beginning of 1952, allowing his daughter Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip to head off on a planned state tour of Australia; they never made the trip, as they were [recalled from Kenya](https://time.com/4019998/queen-elizabeth-ii-reign-began/) after the king died in his sleep on the night of Feb. 5\. In the end, he did not die of cancer, but of a coronary thrombosis; the blood clots that had affected him for years proved fatal. George VI’s death proved an enormous shock to the British nation, and worldwide; President Truman, who had met and liked the monarch, privately said of him that “he was worth two of his brother Ed.” His 25-year old daughter Elizabeth soon acceded the throne, and her reign was a great success, allowing the monarchy to shine in ways that it had never done before. Yet she was someone who believed, in the words of Walter Bagehot, that “Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it… Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.” It is this dedication to tradition—some would say obfuscation—that continues to preoccupy the royal family to this day. Yet amid the tittle-tattle and rumor, some may [argue](https://time.com/6899912/kate-middleton-edited-manipulated-photo/) that the only way that magic can be maintained in the 21st century is to let in rather more daylight than the previous queen and king may have contemplated. They may well have a point. ## Transcript I think it's disingenuous to say why the same people believe this stuff right and that replied that they're not saying all that. I know whatever they're often with the information they got Coming to what they say is a reasonable conclusion is also tied in with some emotional engagement by there, but I can save the royal family all they worried about that welfare. They believe that that is a political activity. They don't lie. They all becomes kind of a mess. And the truth is we can all to do this to me. We can read a newspaper and really believe I had lying cuz he fits with what we believe xcetera don't question it. Right and I think if it was abused and then a few days later we find some other fights at ago. Actually that wasn't quite the case. I put it 90 takes a lot of knowledge sometimes to unpack. The real from the fake. It's not a logical but it reflects a big issue which is a levels are kind of critical digital literacy in the UK population and kind of developed Nations population. She's not high and we know that from research we know that from ofcom research that shows that a good proportion of the population count to freshen J between the advert that and then I'd bet that another Google results and then they don't understand how those results have been generated Seminole a people can often find it hard to differentiate between real news and disinformation stuff. Cuz that's formatted the same on my Facebook page, right? So I think that kind of implicit thing and not headline is that somehow people doing something after we had I must find people I'm not doing that. Of course, there are groups of people with very strong beliefs, you know that we might load and like or dislike and I will they might have political beliefs. We dislike all they might have extreme political beliefs. They not going to look at the news and unused content and say about take a balanced view across that cuz I have a clear view of what they think the world is like. So again, if the stuff I read fix that view without the help, they will go down. It doesn't even remember in the UK and other parts of the world the royal families a very special institution too many people in lots of media coverage of the recently added me another different couples me and I are the different members of the royal family, you know that relationships what's happening inside where I am. Your family is also very public but also very secretive. And so does an information Gap there on the numbers and information got them people will fill it. And like I said if what is filled it is something that fits other people's believe so give them a worry. I'll give him a feeling that guy in it inside and they may get thrown in so I don't think it's I don't think they're all families like specifically different case then the others. I think it's just rather than information got that people have gotten emotional commitment to their ability to evaluate the quality of the information that gas tank is low. And we got we have the suction fast-moving mediascape. Yeah, actually good news good information. Good journalism takes a little bit longer and it leaves the space the others confederal in the way that we we do on social media, and I thought the problem is I think lots of people there don't have the media and digital literacies. I need to manage that kind of Hose pipe of noise that comes through that takes alcohol that I said, I would like Facebook all what's happened and differentiate the stuff work cuz that was previously don't bite you and I think I might 3 newspapers and broadcast them sell them. 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