Charles III is doing his utmost to reassure the nation and the entire kingdom, including the Commonwealth, but unfortunately this time too he had tosurrender and give up one of the most important appointments of the Crown. On Maundy Thursday, the royal family attends mass which is celebrated in the Worchester chapel. Elizabeth II was never missing, except in April 2022, the year of her death, which occurred on the following 8 September. Her condition did not allow her to participate in that event a mocking and cruel fate has today imposed the same fate on his son and heir, Charles III. Unfortunately the treatments against cancer to which he is subjecting himself, prevent the sovereign from tiring himself more than necessary and from staying in highly frequented places to protect himself.
He won’t be at mass and for this reason in the middle of the month, before that Kate Middleton sat on that bench in Windsor to be filmed by the BBC cameras to announce to the world his battle against cancer, even the King recorded a message for the nation and offered himself to the court photographer for a new official shot. Sitting at his desk in his 18th-century royal chamber inside Buckingham Palace, the King appeared slightly tilted in favor of the microphones in front of him.
His figure today is gaunt and suffering, very different from that of last September when he posed with the famous Red Box, which contains official and confidential documents. Only in retrospect is one detail striking. The king, very elegant with an illuminated window and a lamp next to him, is partially covered by a vase of white flowers. That vase is only going to hide therein his right hand, which would mean nothing, except, perhaps, a stylistic choice or an error by the photographer. But then, if two clues prove it, Wednesday, the most attentive subjects did not miss it another shot, the one that went around the web and that showed him in a car leaving Clarence House, his London residence. Sitting next to the window, the king had his arm slightly raised to leave it perfectly in the foreground that right hand appeared very swollen, very red and with the strong presence of spots. This is probably the reason why the same hand was covered in the official photo, so as not to give further worries to a country that has never seen the royal family in such difficulty and which has to deal with a sick king and a future queen fighting against the same evil.
