For the record, I have no idea why so many royal commentators and reporters are playing fast and loose about the timeline of the Princess of Wales’ health and recovery. I suspect that they’re trying to argue that Kate stopped traveling for work because of her health crisis in early 2024, but she stopped traveling for work long before that, in 2022. So, here’s the actual timeline: she was missing for months at the start of 2024, then, in the summer of 2024, in her own words, Kate said her goal was “staying cancer free.” In January 2025, she said she was in remission. The only thing that happened one year ago is that Kate suddenly pulled out of Royal Ascot at the very last minute. The royal offices couldn’t even keep their stories straight about what Kate’s Ascot withdrawal meant or whether Kate’s health was still in bad shape. Since then, Kate has gone on multiple international vacations, taken all of last summer off, and disappeared for about a month around Easter this year. So, back to normal for her. When she’s not on vacation, she averages about one event a week. As I said, there’s a sudden influx of conversations about “Kate’s come so far in one year.” Speaking of:
When the Princess of Wales hosted a Buckingham Palace garden party in May last year, it was described as a ‘significant’ milestone on her road to recovery after cancer. It was Kate’s first official public engagement after finishing treatment and since then every new portrait, handshake and royal engagement has been ‘another step’ on her road to recovery. Exactly one year on, it’s sometimes easy to forget the trepidation her cancer diagnosis first sparked in 2024.
Kate, 44, radiated positivity and joy in a new family portrait as the future Queen let her hair down and enjoyed the sunshine with Prince William and her three children. This week, she launched a ‘pivotal’ new stage of her early years campaign during a solo outing in London after Kensington Palace revealed Kate is ‘looking forward’ to her first official overseas trip in more than three years when she travels to Italy next week.
But fans should not misread this flurry of activity as a sign of normalcy, according to royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.
‘The future will look very different,’ he told the Daily Mail, adding that Kate’s ‘life-changing’ cancer journey will see her priorities tilt in favour of family, while her engagements will be of a ‘less stressful’ nature.
‘Her life’s work is in early childhood, and she was working on this as soon as she was able,’ said Mr Fitzwilliams. ‘Yet after her devastating experience there has clearly been a fundamental change.’
He explained that while William and Kate have always prioritised their family and the needs of George, Charlotte and Louis, the princess’s health battle has heightened her sense of duty first and foremost to her children.
Over the last year, the Waleses vacated Adelaide Cottage and moved into the far more private Forest Lodge, a Georgian mansion located on the grounds of Windsor Great Park. Not only is the secluded Forest Lodge, complete with eight bedrooms and six bathrooms, double the size of Adelaide Cottage, but it also gives the family room for a ‘fresh start’ after Kate’s illness.
Mr Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail that ‘William and Catherine prioritise the school run and they both also attend school activities with all their children’ while charting a ‘path back to normality’.
On the other hand, she skipped last year’s edition of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize in Rio de Janeiro, with royal expert Ingrid Seaward telling the Daily Express: ‘I think Kate has to wrap some semblance of normality around [George, Charlotte and Louis], because she knows what [royal life] can do. She’s seen it; she’s been around long enough…but they’re not normal children, and I think it’s extremely hard to keep their little feet on the ground.’
Kate also pulled out of Royal Ascot last year in a sign of her ‘continuing to prioritise her recovery’, according to Mr Fitzwilliams.
“…Her engagements will be of a ‘less stressful’ nature…” They act like she was coal-mining six days a week before her 2024 disappearance. She wasn’t working on a nuclear submarine, for goodness sake! Her engagements have never been stressful. Every so often, she’ll go on a boat or hike during an event, and guess what, she’s back to doing those things too. I’ve always been so irritated by how Kate is coddled and infantilized, and it’s been happening for fifteen years – like a woman in her 30s or 40s can’t ever be expected to work a few times a week.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
