What does King Charles do and how has cancer changed his duties? (2024)

King Charles has resumed public duties, as he continues to be treated for cancer.

The King temporarily stopped most of his public engagements after his diagnosis in February.

King Charles was diagnosed with cancer in February 2024, and began treatment shortly afterwards.

Although he withdrew from public events in the weeks after his diagnosis, the King continued with his constitutional role as head of state, including paperwork and private meetings.

His weekly sessions with the prime minister also carried on, although not all took place in person.

The King's first major public appearance after his diagnosis was on Easter Sunday, when he and the Queen greeted crowds after a church service in Windsor.

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The King resumed his public duties at the end of April 2024.

His first public visit was to a cancer treatment centre with Queen Camilla. He also made a surprise visit to an army barracks in Hampshire, where he joked about being "allowed out of my cage".

Since then he has attended the Trooping of the Colour ceremony, where Catherine, Princess of Wales, made her much anticipated first public appearance after her own cancer diagnosis.

At the end of June, the King and Queen hosted the emperor and empress of Japan for a three-day state visit.

A few days later, several members of the Royal Family travelled to Edinburgh for the Thistle service, where the King formally appointed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Scotland's highest order of chivalry.

The King and Queen travelled to Cardiff to mark 25 years of the Welsh Parliament. Charles - the former Prince of Wales - addressed members of the Senedd in Welsh.

Charles and Camilla also visited Jersey and Guernsey, the first time a British monarch has been to the Channel Islands since the late Queen Elizabeth II went to Jersey in 2005.

After the general election, the King invited Sir Keir Starmer to Buckingham Palace to form a government.

Charles delivered the King's Speech on 17 July as part of the State Opening of Parliament.

Buckingham Palace has also confirmed that the King and Queen Camilla will visit Australia in October, before heading to Samoa for a Commonwealth summit.

However, the couple will not visit New Zealand, after the King's doctors advised against an extended visit.

The King is the UK head of state, but his powers are largely symbolic and ceremonial. He remains politically neutral.

He receives daily dispatches from the government in a red leather box, including briefings ahead of important meetings, or documents needing his signature.

The prime minister normally meets the King on a Wednesday at Buckingham Palace.

These meetings are completely private, and no official records are kept of what is said.

• Appointing a government - the leader of the party that wins a general election is usually called to Buckingham Palace, where they are invited to form a government. The King also formally dissolves Parliament before a general election
• State Opening and the King's Speech - the King sets out the government's plans in a speech delivered from the throne in the House of Lords
• Royal Assent - when a piece of legislation is passed through Parliament, it must be formally approved by the King in order to become law. The last time Royal Assent was refused was in 1708

He also leads the annual Remembrance event in November at the Cenotaph in London.

As well as hosting visiting heads of state, the King regularly meets foreign ambassadors and high commissioners.

The King is also head of the Commonwealth, an association of 56 independent countries spanning 2.5 billion people.

He is head of state for 14 of these, known as the Commonwealth realms, as well as the Crown dependencies - the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

Charles also confers official honours on people from all walks of life, in public recognition of their merit, service or bravery. Most honours are awarded at new year and on the monarch's official birthday, in June.

The King is also patron to a number of organisations, including the RNLI, the Samaritans, RAF Museum, the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, the Penny Brohn cancer charity and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, Orchestra and Choir.

The Queen also holds a number of patronages, including the Royal Literary Fund, the Royal Academy of Dance, the Royal Voluntary Service and the Army Benevolent Fund, and undertakes her own public engagements.

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• Prince William is the elder son of King Charles and his first wife, the late Princess Diana. After the death of the Queen, he became the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall while retaining his previous Duke of Cambridge title. He is married to Catherine, Princess of Wales and duch*ess of Cornwall and Cambridge. They have three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis
• The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) was the Queen's second child and only daughter. She is married to Vice Adm Timothy Laurence and has two children with her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips: Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall
• The Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Edward) was the Queen's youngest child. He is married to the duch*ess of Edinburgh (Sophie Rhys-Jones). They have two children: Lady Louise and James, Earl of Wessex
• The Duke of York (Prince Andrew) was the Queen's second son. He has two daughters with his former wife, the duch*ess of York (Sarah Ferguson): Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Prince Andrew stepped down as a "working royal" in 2019 after a controversial BBC Newsnight interview about allegations that he had sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre. In February 2022, he paid an undisclosed sum to settle the civil sexual assault case which Ms Guiffre brought against him in the US
• The Duke of Sussex (Prince Harry) is William's younger brother. He is married to the duch*ess of Sussex (Meghan Markle). They have two children: Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. In 2020, they announced they were stepping back as senior royals and moved to California

Camilla, William and Kate receive royal honours

The order of succession sets out which member of the Royal Family takes over as monarch when the existing one dies or abdicates.

First in line - the heir to the throne - is the monarch's eldest child. Sons no longer take precedence over their older sisters.

King Charles's heir is his elder son, the Prince of Wales.

William's eldest child Prince George is second-in-line to the throne, and his daughter Princess Charlotte is third. Her younger brother Prince Louis is fourth and Prince Harry is fifth.

• Royal Family tree and line of succession
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The Royal Family receives an annual payment from the taxpayer, known as the Sovereign Grant, which is used to pay for official expenses, such as the upkeep of properties and staff costs.

The amount is based on a proportion of the profits of the Crown Estate, a £16.5bn property business owned by the monarch but run independently.

The Sovereign Grant is worth £86.3m for 2023-2024, as it was in 2021-2022 and 2022-23, although the Royal Family's total spending was more, with the difference covered by reserves.

To keep the annual payment at the same level of £86.3m in 2024-2025, the grant will be a smaller percentage of Crown Estate profits, which have been boosted by six new offshore wind farms.

However, if Crown Estate profits continue to grow as predicted, even under the reduced formula, the amount given to the Royal Family is expected to increase substantially in 2025-26 and 2026-27.

The King also receives money from a private estate called the Duchy of Lancaster, which is passed down from monarch to monarch. It covers more than 18,000 hectares of land, including property in central London. Worth £654m, it generates about £20m a year in profits.

The Duke of Cornwall (currently William, Prince of Wales) benefits from the Duchy of Cornwall, which mainly owns land in the south-west of England. Worth £1bn, it generated a net surplus of £24m in 2022-23.

The King and William receive the profits from the duchies personally, and can spend the money as they wish. Both voluntarily pay income tax on the proceeds.

Some Royal Family members have private art, jewellery and stamp collections which they can sell or use to generate income as they wish.

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Charles became King on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022.

On 6 May 2023, Charles and his wife Camilla were crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in front of more than 2,000 guests, including global politicians, fellow kings and queens, religious leaders, celebrities and community champions.

Crowds lined the streets of central London to watch the King and Queen return to Buckingham Palace in a mile-long procession.

Two months later, the King was presented with the Scottish crown jewels, in a special service of thanksgiving at St Giles's Cathedral, in Edinburgh.

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The King and Queen's official residence, Buckingham Palace, is having a 10-year £369m refurbishment,. They split their time between Clarence House in London and Highgrove in Gloucestershire.

Other Royal residences include Windsor Castle, Sandringham in Norfolk, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire.

In August 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales moved from Kensington Palace in west London to live in Adelaide Cottage, on the Windsor Estate.

A 2023 YouGov opinion poll of more than 2,000 adults in Britain ahead of the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's death suggested a sharp generational divide.

Overall, 62% wanted to keep the monarchy, with 26% backing an elected head of state - up from 17% a decade earlier.

But while 80% of the over-65s supported the monarchy, only 37% of 18 to 24-year-olds agreed.

There was also less support for the royals in Scotland or Wales than in England.

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