Prince William’s private battle to protect his family in The Princess of Wales(Kate) darkest days.

 

Prince William’s private battle to protect his family in The Princess of Wales(Kate) darkest days.

While the start of the year usually represents a gentle beginning to the royal calendar, 2024 was about to change all that. William was left in an extraordinary position. Suddenly, with three children to care for at home and no live-in staff at their Adelaide Cottage home, and with his wife and father in hospital, his future was looking decidedly different.

When the Princess of Wales entered hospital on 16 January, and was then ghosted out two weeks later to disappear completely from public view for potentially months on end, it created an incredible vacuum of information. "When Catherine went in, he was fairly resolute," said a close aide.

"They both very calmly told the children what was going on and how long Catherine would need to be away for, but explained other than that everything would continue as normal and when she came home, she would need to rest up for a bit."

Catherine was able to keep in touch with her family through video calls from her bedside, catching up on what George, Charlotte and Louis had been doing at school and asking if ‘Papa’ had been able to cook for them while she had been away.

"At that time it seemed to all be perfectly in hand, they were the calmness in the storm certainly. But away from the children he was of course incredibly pensive. His father’s illness brought into focus just how quickly his life, and that of his family as well as the whole landscape of the institution, could change very quickly."

Catherine's bravery in preparing her public cancer statement

In perhaps the most emblematic moment of the irrationality of the time, on 20 March the Daily Mirror revealed how a criminal investigation had been launched at the hospital where Catherine had been treated, over claims that three staff had allegedly tried to access the princess’s private medical records.

The security breach, confirmed by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which was leading the criminal probe, made headlines around the world for days. Yet on the day of the Mirror’s world exclusive the princess was not concerning herself with the probe or the people at the centre of it. She was steadying herself for something much more life-changing.

Two weeks before that moment on a warm spring afternoon in March when she had sat down to pose for a photograph with her family, Catherine had been contacted by her medical team at the London Clinic.

With William by her side, the Princess of Wales, who had previously been in for a major, yet routine abdominal operation, was told that secondary tests had shown cancer was present. The advice was an immediate course of preventative chemotherapy in order to give her the best chance of a full recovery.

Friends of Catherine say that although she was caught completely in shock, she remained composed. Her first thoughts were of her children and her husband.

William, according to friends, later told how he was in "a state of disbelief". First his father had been diagnosed with cancer, and a month later his wife was now facing a similar challenge. Catherine called her parents and her siblings to tell them, then she and William resolved to gather the children and impart what they knew in the best and most positive way possible.

Catherine had already decided to make a personal statement. She had seen the positivity and warmth that had greeted the King when he had been so open about his own diagnosis. More than that, though, the princess believed that her experience could benefit others in similar distressing circumstances. Catherine’s family rallied round, with her sister Pippa helping to write the script for the short video statement.

Dressed in a simple striped jumper and jeans, sitting on a wooden bench and surrounded by a serene spring backdrop of daffodils – a world away from the disgraceful chaos peddled by faceless social media trolls – Catherine calmly described how the diagnosis had come as a "huge shock" on top of an "incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family".

The message, recorded in complete secrecy by a BBC special events team, was broadcast on the 6pm national news and online. Much like the announcement of the death of Elizabeth II, it felt like an earthquake whose reverberations were felt around the world. "The days beforehand were filled with shock, but at that moment, it was genuinely as if the world stood still", said a senior courtier.

Tags: Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince Louis, Prince William and Kate Middleton, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Meghan, Lilibet

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