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The Princess of Wales talked with cancer patients about how tough chemotherapy is and how attached she got to the port that delivered the drugs, joking that she hesitated when she learned it could be taken out.
Catherine also offered her deep gratitude to the medical team who looked after her “so well,” said she is in remission and reflected on how “it takes time to adjust to a new normal.”Â
Catherine’s comments during her recent visit to the Royal Marsden hospital in London, where she had her treatment, and a subsequent Instagram post offered insight into her experience since her diagnosis nearly a year ago.
But as she became a joint patron of the hospital, with her husband, Prince William, who has been its president since 2007, Catherine also signalled the importance that role could hold for her in the future.
“She undertook a visit … of appropriate gratitude, but she didn’t just make it about herself, by visiting the day care centre where she had been treated,” Judith Rowbotham, a social and cultural scholar and visiting research professor at the University of Plymouth in southwestern England, said in an interview.
“She widened it out. So I think that her becoming the joint patron, which in these days of a slimmed-down Royal Family would be rare, is intended to send a very particular and personal message.”
The visit was the first major solo engagement Catherine has undertaken in her gradual return to public duties after she said late last summer that she had completed her preventative chemotherapy.
Catherine, the Princess of Wales, has finished her chemotherapy treatment, and will gradually be returning to public life. She shared the update, and reflections on her battle, in a rare, polished and positive video with her family.
Rowbotham said she would have been surprised if one of Catherine’s first solo visits hadn’t been to the Royal Marsden.
During the visit, she chatted with patients. She also hugged a patient as she was leaving.
“I think she very clearly understood, in a way that you can only understand if you’ve been through it, what was going on, how people were feeling,” said Rowbotham.
“She came across not just as somebody who was making a royal visit … but her interaction with both the staff and the patients was of: ‘Yes, I’ve been there.'”
Catherine also alluded to how people might feel after treatment.
“As the Princess of Wales shared following her recent public visit to the Royal Marsden, recovery after cancer treatment ends is often a time of change and adjusting to a new normal,” Elizabeth Holmes, director of health policy for the Canadian Cancer Society, said via email.
“This can be different for everyone, and one way isn’t better than the other — the most important thing is to figure out what works for you.”
Cancer has a tremendous impact on people, their families and communities, said Holmes.Â
“By sharing about her cancer diagnosis and experience, the Princess of Wales reminds the world of the importance of our health-care teams, support systems and research investments. A reminder that to take on cancer, it takes all of us.”
While Catherine has completed chemotherapy, her father-in-law, King Charles, continues to receive treatment for his own undisclosed form of cancer, which was also diagnosed about a year ago.
Charles’s first public engagement after he started treatment was at a cancer centre. At that time, he also took on a new patronage — for the Cancer Research U.K. charity.
“One of the reasons why both the King and the Princess of Wales have been very careful not to reveal the types of cancer for which they have received treatment is because they want to send a message,” said Rowbotham. “If you suffer from cancer, then no matter what type … it is essentially a difficult journey, a frightening journey, and one that many people experience but don’t want to experience so … they’re trying to make it universal.”
Rowbotham expects that for both William and Catherine, the relationship with the Royal Marsden will be a very active patronage.
“The prince, from having watched his father still going through treatment and having watched his wife go through the preventative treatment, they both have seen and experienced very actively at first hand, very consciously have shared elements of that in a way that previous royals haven’t.”
Catherine herself signalled a particular interest in her new patronage.
“In my new role as joint patron of the Royal Marsden, my hope is that by supporting groundbreaking research and clinical excellence, as well as promoting patient and family well-being, we might save many more lives, and transform the experience of all those impacted by cancer,” she said on Instagram.
A milestone birthday and renewed commitment from Sophie Â
She has, in recent days, been called “the Royal Family’s secret weapon” and a “safe pair of hands.”
As Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, turned 60 the other day, media attention focused on the rising profile of King Charles’s sister-in-law, with one headline predicting “a big royal future” for her.
“She is in line in many ways to become the elder stateswoman of royal diplomacy,” Rowbotham said.
With King Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales, limited in public duties as they were treated for cancer in 2024, Sophie was more often front and centre at royal events and engagements. She and her husband, Charles’s younger brother, Prince Edward, have also taken on more overseas travel.
“During the last year, it has been the Duchess of Edinburgh who has upped her royal engagements to fill in for the Princess of Wales,” Rowbotham said.
Sophie joined the Royal Family in 1999, with her marriage to Edward.
“She doesn’t put her foot wrong and she is in some ways more outgoing and has more of an easy relatability than Edward, who works equally as hard but at the same time is slightly stiffer,” said Rowbotham.
It’s also clear, Rowbotham suggested, that Sophie has been a very good friend to Prince William, and that they have always got along.
There also appears to be a close rapport between Sophie and Catherine. The Duchess of Edinburgh stood beside the Princess of Wales in November at Remembrance Day commemorations, a notable appearance in Catherine’s gradual return to public duties.
“The body language underlined their closeness,” Rowbotham said.
Sophie, who is patron of more than 70 charities and organizations, has travelled widely internationally in connection with causes and interests she has promoted, from support for victims of sexual violence in conflict zones to efforts to fight a preventable form of blindness.
She — and Edward — have also been to Canada frequently on working visits.  She has been a patron of Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals since 2005 and holds two military positions in Canada: colonel-in-chief for the South Alberta Light Horse and the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in Ontario’s Niagara region.
Those who meet her praise her empathy and ability to put people at ease, no matter the setting — whether in a hospital, a local community centre or on the field with members of one of her regiments.
As is often the case for milestone royal birthdays, a new photo of Sophie was released by Buckingham Palace. Sophie, who appears relaxed and happy in the picture, was interested in the creative style of the London-based portrait and fashion photographer — Christina Ebenezer — and wanted to support a young rising female photographer, the palace said.
The palace also said that as Sophie turns 60, she has a renewed sense of excitement and commitment to her work around gender equality.
To mark the birthday, The Telegraph newspaper joined her for a day to gain insight into her life as a working royal.
“In a matter of hours, she has tackled topics from war to religion, marvelled at the variety of tinned beans on offer at a community shop and welled up talking about the moment she ‘held her breath’ watching her two children stand vigil beside the coffin of their late grandmother, Elizabeth II,” the newspaper reported.
Sharing the comments regarding her children — Louise and James — was a rare public reflection on her family.
Louise, 21, is at university in Scotland, while James, 17, is at boarding school.
Sophie “has been fairly focused on giving them privacy to grow up,” said Rowbotham.
“I think that because the children are growing up, because they themselves are going to be in charge of how much publicity, media engagement they choose to have, she feels freer to make some comments.”
Sophie herself seems to relish all that she takes on in her royal role, saying during one engagement when the Telegraph was along that “there is so much to be done.”
A settlement in Prince Harry’s tabloid fight
As recently as last month, Prince Harry had said he wouldn’t settle a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. newspaper group over allegations it had unlawfully obtained information about him several years ago.
But on Wednesday, he claimed a “monumental” victory after the publisher settled the suit and offered Harry an apology and unspecified damages, said to be worth millions of pounds.Â
News Group Newspapers, publisher of the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, made a “full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex” for “the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them,” according to a statement Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, read in court.
Sian Harrison, a London-based author and media law expert, told CBC News that Harry won a “significant” concession from the Sun, but that the tabloid and its corporate executives will be pleased to have avoided the airing of damaging allegations in court.Â
Prince Harry will receive ‘substantial’ damages after settling a lawsuit with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which publishes the U.K. tabloid The Sun and others. He also received an apology for ‘serious intrusion’ into his private life using unlawful means.
The settlement, Rowbotham suggested, was a compromise and “interesting pragmatism displayed by both sides.”
The settlement doesn’t end Harry’s legal fight against the U.K. tabloids he has long criticized for intrusions into his private life. Another case against the Daily Mail is set to go to trial next year.
But Rowbotham isn’t so sure it will make it before a judge.Â
“I strongly suspect that [it] will quietly be sorted and settled out of court,” she said. “I think that possibly Harry is reluctantly learning that these high-profile engagements are not winning him popularity … [and are] opening him and his family to various criticisms.”
With files from CBC News and Thomson Reuters
Royally quotable
“Her story demonstrates that even the quietest, loneliest voice in the wilderness can change the world. That is the true power of words.”
— Queen Camilla, speaking about teenage Jewish diarist Anne Frank at a reception to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. King Charles will be in Poland on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Royal reads and watches
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Princess Anne says she has no memory of the accident that put her in hospital last summer. Anne made the comment to reporters during a trip this week to South Africa. While she was there, she unveiled a memorial to hundreds of South African servicemen, mostly Black, who died during the First World War. The 1,772 men worked in dangerous and gruelling non-combatant roles in East Africa, but until now had no known grave or commemoration. [BBC]
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Leading cultural figures will be tasked with working alongside members of the Royal Family to boost Britain’s international influence as part of the U.K. government’s new “soft power council.” [The Guardian]
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A coroner has issued a warning about the effects of antidepressants prescribed by a Buckingham Palace doctor to the son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent before his suicide. [The Guardian]
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Prince William visited a pub to enjoy a pint with fellow soccer fans, chatting about the Aston Villa club ahead of an upcoming match. [BBC]
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King Charles put a personal letter in a time capsule that will be buried in Scotland and opened in 100 years. [BBC]
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The Duchess of Sussex pushed back the launch of her upcoming Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, because of the Los Angeles wildfires. [Variety]
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