Britain’s King Charles III was forced to cancel meetings for the rest of the day on Friday due to “side effects” from his cancer treatment, according to Buckingham Palace.
“Following scheduled and ongoing medical treatment for cancer this morning, the king experienced temporary side effects that required a short period of observation in hospital,” the statement explained.
“His Majesty’s afternoon engagements were therefore postponed,” the statement read, adding that the 78-year-old UK leader has subsequently returned to his home in Clarence House.
“As a precautionary measure, acting on medical advice, tomorrow’s (Friday’s) diary programme will also be rescheduled.”
Charles, who walked most of his life in the shadow of his mother, the nation’s beloved Queen Elizabeth II, became king after her death on September 8, 2022.
In a break with the palace’s past silence on personal health matters, Charles decided to go public with his cancer diagnosis in February 2024.
Buckingham Palace on Thursday said that the monarch “would like to send his apologies to all those who may be inconvenienced or disappointed as a result”.
Charles had been due to receive the credentials from the ambassadors of three different countries on Thursday, and had four engagements planned on Friday during a trip to Birmingham.
Charles’s coronation in May 2023 as monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth countries was the first in Britain in seven decades.
It is understood that Charles and Camilla’s scheduled trip to Italy in early April will go ahead as planned.
No new dates have been confirmed yet after they postponed a planned meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican following the advice of the pontiff’s doctors, which had also been scheduled for the start of the April trip.
Concerned that Francis might not survive, the UK’s head of state wrote to him after the 88-year-old pope was diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs in February.
After spending nearly 40 days at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, Francis was released on Sunday.
Within two and a half months of receiving his cancer diagnosis, Charles went back to work. Over the remainder of 2024, he increased his responsibilities gradually and travelled abroad on multiple occasions, including to Australia and Samoa.
After receiving a cancer diagnosis last year, Catherine, Princess of Wales, the king’s daughter-in-law and wife of Charles’s eldest son Prince William, announced in January that her cancer was now in remission.
