King Charles III and Queen Camilla are days away from touching down in Australia for his first royal tour Down Under since his coronation.
After the undeniably rough year he and his royal family have had — like them or not, it’s unquestionably bad luck that both he and his daughter-in-law, Princess Catherine, received cancer diagnoses and underwent cancer treatment in the same year — a getaway Down Under could be just what the doctor ordered.
And perhaps it is, with reports emerging that the King’s doctors have permitted him to pause his cancer treatment during the nine-day tour.
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But royal watchers say that tidbit has alarm bells ringing for them.
Some say it is a sign of the desperate lengths King Charles is willing to go to keep the monarchy together.
Because all is not well in the royal ranks if reports are to be believed.
Take, for instance, the three-minute warm-and-fuzzy video package released by the Waleses last month to announce Princess Catherine had ended her chemotherapy treatment. Surely it’s nothing more than a lovely show of familial solidarity by the future monarchs, their children and their Middleton grandparents?
And, yet, consider who wasn’t in the picture: King Charles. Not a royal grandparent in sight. Later, The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes reported the video wasn’t even “signed off” by the King.
Sykes later wrote that as the year has worn on, “executive power and influence is already flowing William’s way”. He wrote that the fact the Waleses were able “to get away with such cheek showed… how the power dynamic has shifted since the king’s diagnosis”.
Yet, as the next-in-line royals seemingly begin the drumroll for their grand return to capital-S Society, King Charles has been laying low — as any 75-year-old with cancer is wont to do.
A source close to the told the Daily Mail the fortnight leading up to the royal tour “has been kept deliberately light for His Majesty”.
“He will still be undertaking meetings, doing his paperwork and still come down for treatment,” the source said.
“Australia is a big deal and he wants to be fighting fit.”
Fair enough, it’s quite a trek from Old Blighty to Australia — even for the most spry young backpacker.
But it appears the nine-day tour itself also has some padding for His Majesty: stops in New Zealand and Fiji have been axed, and the final schedule reportedly includes a full rest say, according to news.com.au’s Daniele Elser.
“That [a royal] trip, undertaken to the highest degree of luxury and comfort, requires weeks of conserving his energy doesn’t just tell us a story about a man facing down a serious illness, but about a king trying so very hard to hold things together,” she writes.
It will hardly be a trip that many remember, unlike those made by the young Prince Charles (alas, no togs this time).
No, the King and Queen will land in Australia on October 18 to attend engagements in Canberra and Sydney before travelling to Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Canberrans (and anyone else who wants to make the journey) will have the opportunity to see and meet the royals on Monday, October 21 when they make their way to the Australian War Memorial in the capital at 12.35pm.
A ceremonial welcome will take place at 1pm, before the couple head to the Parliament House forecourt (another potential meet and greet opportunity) at 2.10pm. Members of the public are advised to be in place at Parliament House no later than 12.10pm.
The royals will head to the Sydney Opera House forecourt on October 22, at 4.20pm (the public can gather from 3pm). And the public can also see the couple at the Man O’War Steps.
Charles and Camilla will also embark on the Admiral Hudson vessel to conduct a review of His Majesty’s Australian ships Arunta, Gascoyne, Hobart, Warramunga and Yarra which are anchored in Sydney Harbour.
A Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force and Australian Army will conduct a fly-past during the review. The public can watch that from Farm Cove, Royal Botanic Gardens and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair precinct.
The King and Queen will also attend a community BBQ in western Sydney, and will meet with Australians of the Year Professor Georgina Long and Professor Richard Scolyer.
So, by all estimates, this will be a ‘smile and wave’ affair with all the pomp and ceremony that the late Queen was rather adept at.
It’s very clearly a show to remind the people that we’re happy little Vegemites in the Commonwealth pantry. No doubt, it’s a bid to subtly quiet any wayward rumblings about Australia becoming a Republic. Not that there’s been all that much all that recently, but the simmering disquiet about our head of state never really goes away.
There were louder talks at the time of the late Queen’s death. That seemed like the best chance for Australia’s Republican movement to carve a clean break from the monarchy. Yet nothing has eventuated — Anthony Albanese’s pursuit of the Voice to Parliament stymied any chance for another referendum any time soon.
Australia (and the world, even beyond the Commonwealth countries) seemed to have a sentimental attachment to the Queen that Charles hasn’t been able to capture yet.
Tipping the crown at his people during this nine-day sojourn is a classic bid to foster goodwill. And, no doubt, we’ll lap it up.
