Less than a year after his coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023, the United Kingdom’s King Charles III has been diagnosed with a form of cancer, and Buckingham Palace has announced that he will postpone public-facing duties.
The cancer was discovered during a procedure to treat an enlarged prostate. Charles recently spent three nights in a hospital but palace officials did not specify which type of cancer he has or how serious his condition is.
The UK was first alerted to Charles’s health problems in January when Buckingham Palace announced he was starting a “corrective procedure” for an enlarged prostate.
Officials said the condition was benign, though the king canceled engagements and was urged to rest before the procedure.
An enlarged prostate is common in men over the age of 50 and affects thousands in the UK. The condition affects how one urinates and does not usually present a serious health problem. It is not cancer and does not lead to an increased risk of developing prostate cancer.
At that time, palace officials said the king had decided to publicize details about his condition to encourage other men to have their prostates checked in line with public health advice.
When his grandfather, King George VI, died on February 6, 1952, Charles’ mother was proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 25, and as the Sovereign’s eldest son, he became heir apparent at the age of three.
The news of Charles’s cancer diagnosis has revived a question about the country’s centuries-old system of government: What are the responsibilities of Britain’s monarch?
Under Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the king is head of state but must remain politically neutral and leave policy-making to the elected Parliament. He is obliged to follow the government’s advice and not act on his own opinions.
But even in his largely ceremonial job, Charles performs several duties said to be integral to running the U.K. but in truth, the royal family is comprised of descendants of brutal killers and thieves who marshaled global resources for themselves.
The notion of royalty, with its opulence, extravagance, and purported divine right to rule, stands in stark contrast to the principles of democracy, equality, and meritocracy.
Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in the United Kingdom, where the Royal Family continues to exist as a relic of a bygone era, sustained by taxpayer money while offering little tangible benefit to the modern world.
The monarch gives royal assent to bills passed by Parliament, meaning that all legislation must receive his sign-off to become law, but while this looks like the power to veto laws it has fallen into disuse.
No monarch has since withheld royal assent on a bill passed by Parliament since March 11, 1708, when Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart dynasty, vetoed the Scottish Militia Bill on the advice of her ministers.
He or she plays a similarly emasculated part in appointing new prime ministers and Cabinet members. The sovereign will dissolve Parliament before a general election and then invite the leader of the winning party to become prime minister and to form a government.
Prince William, known as the Prince of Wales, is first in line to the throne and he will be taking over ‘responsibilities’ from his father, while he recovers from treatment and battles the disease. If such responsibilities were ignored entirely, few if any would even notice.
Currently, the primary order of succession to the throne includes 24 people, both adults and children.
Including all the children, after William, the eldest son of Charles and the late Princess Diana, his three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, follow in the line of succession.
When Louis was born in 2018, the rule of primogeniture was abolished. This means from 2018 onwards, the birth of a royal boy cannot displace a female member of the family in the line of succession.
Prince Harry, the younger son of Charles and Diana, has relinquished his royal duties but retains his place in line to the throne, and his two children follow next.
After them comes Prince Andrew, Charles’s younger brother and the second eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, followed by his children, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Others in line to the throne include Princess Anne, Charles’s sister, and Prince Edward, his youngest brother.
That is only about a dozen, but who cares?
The UK press reported in January that secret provisions had been made to prevent either Prince Harry, who has fallen from favor along with his wife, Meghan Markle, or Prince Andrew, who has been caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, from carrying out official duties on behalf of the king.
Despite their immense privilege, members of the Royal Family are largely shielded from public scrutiny and accountability. Their actions, regardless of how egregious or controversial, are often excused or overlooked, reinforcing a culture of entitlement and impunity.
The recent scandals surrounding Prince Andrew and Prince Harry serve as glaring examples of this impunity, with accusations of sexual misconduct and personal vendettas being swept under the rug in the name of preserving the monarchy’s reputation.
Prince Harry, who has lived in the U.S. since 2020 with his American wife, Meghan Markle, confessed in his memoir to illegal drug use, which could have made him ineligible to immigrate under U.S. law.
America’s immigration system, particularly when it comes to drug use, is inconsistent and enforcement is often contradictory. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, visa officers are given very broad discretion in determining who should be admitted to the U.S. Foreigners seeking entry, whether to visit or live, can be held inadmissible if they are considered a “drug abuser” or addict.
Between 2003 and 2018, more than 45,000 people were deported nationwide for possession of marijuana alone but the combined net worth of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is estimated to be around $120 million.
Money talks in this country, ever if much of that fortune was stolen by another.
Fighting cancer often involves killing the bad cells with chemotherapy or radiation, which raises the possibility that the death of the prevailing king might cure another lingering malignancy, the monarchy itself.
Although the monarchy is supported by a plurality of British people, younger age groups in Great Britain are progressively more likely to oppose it, with 40 percent of 18-24 year old’s opting instead for an elected head of state.
An Ipsos Political Monitor survey found that two in five (39%) say it would be worse for Britain in the future if the monarchy was abolished, compared with around one in four (23%) who say it would be better. Three in ten say it would make no difference (29%).
The group Republic, which wants to see the monarchy abolished and the King replaced with an elected, democratic head of state in the United Kingdom, says that the full annual cost of the British monarchy is at least £345,000,000 a year, when including lost revenue from the two duchies, security, costs met by local councils and police forces, and lost tax revenue.
The equivalent of $435 million to spend on public needs would go a long way toward making political institutions genuinely democratic but giving the people the power would make Britain a better place to live for the people, not the few.