Charles III will celebrate his 76th birthday on 14 November. The royal family have so many anniversaries each year they tend to keep their birthdays – apart from the decade ones – low key. The King will of course receive plenty of cards, the most appealing of which are bound to be those from his grandchildren.
The trickiness of the relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex means he has not had the opportunity of getting to know his youngest grandchildren, five-year-old Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, or Lili as they call her, aged three. When Harry was in the UK last month as patron of WellChild he was unable to see his father, who was in residence at Birkhall on the Balmoral estate.
‘Speaking from a personal perspective,’ the King said in his speech to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on 28 September at an event to mark its 25th anniversary, ‘Scotland has always had a uniquely special place in the hearts of my family and myself. My beloved grandmother was proudly Scottish. My mother especially treasured the time spent at Balmoral, and it was there in the most beloved of places where she chose to spend her final days.’
The news that Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi are expecting their second child together next spring was announced by Buckingham Palace at the beginning of October. The baby will be a sibling to their daughter Sienna, who is three, and to Christopher (or Wolfie as he is known), Edo’s son from an earlier relationship.
The Princess of Wales made a welcome appearance at a meeting at Windsor Castle for her Early Years Project and later on kept her promise to stand ‘side by side’ with fellow cancer victims when she met 16-year-old Liz Hatton, who is suffering from a rare form of the disease (also page 63). Liz had travelled to Windsor on Prince William’s invitation to observe him at an investiture and enjoy her hobby of photography by taking some pictures herself.
We like the idea of the Prince and Princess of Wales combining their official work with their philanthropy in such a way that it does not seem like an old-fashioned, formal engagement but more of a casual get-together. It is not, of course, and takes just as much – if not more – organising, but the results are far more satisfactory and in keeping with William and Catherine’s way of doing things.
The King was given permission by his doctors to pause his weekly cancer treatment during his first visit to Australia as head of state so that he would have more energy. The schedule was devised to give His Majesty time to rest and recover from the hours spent travelling during the eight-day trip, which under normal circumstances he would not countenance.
The tour, a major milestone for Charles III and Queen Camilla, also included a short state visit to Samoa, in the South Pacific Ocean, the venue for this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Full coverage of the trip will appear in our December issue.
