The Royals with Roya and Kate - We Three Kings: How George, William and Charles are reshaping the Crown

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

In a poignant visit to a homeless charity, Prince William this week introduced his son Prince George to the family business by taking him to one of Diana’s most cherished charities. So what does this mean for the way in which the two future Kings are shaping the monarchy? In a year marked by illness, family strain and intense scrutiny, the institution is under more pressure than ever before. But there’s good news for the Windsors, too. King Charles gave a rare health update confirming his cancer treatment will be reduced in the New Year. Roya and Kate are joined by The Times health editor Eleanor Hayward to examine what these parallel moments reveal about leadership, inheritance, and how the future of the Crown is being shaped in real time.Presenters: Roya Nikkhah, royal editor for The Sunday Times, and Kate Mansey, royal editor of The TimesContributor: Eleanor Hayward, health editor of The TimesProducer: Robert WallaceEditor: Stephen TitheringtonImage: Getty Images Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the royals from The Times and the Sunday Times with me, Royneiko and me, Kate Mansi. This week, a story of three kings, the current king, King Charles, and those next in the line of succession, kings in waiting, Prince William and his son, Prince George. So we begin with two moments that, at first glance, sit apart, but together tell a much bigger story about the monarchy. The first came this week from William, the people. Prince of Wales, taking his eldest son, Prince George, to the passage, the homeless charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, once took William to when he was a child. It's a striking echo across the generations, a future king retracing a formative moment from his own childhood and introducing the next generation to the same lesson.

And the second headline came last week when the king appeared on television to deliver an update on his health, confirming the positive news that his cancer treatment will be reduced in the new year. Yes, it was a rare moment of candor from the king, not a medical briefing or a personal confession, but a carefully framed public intervention delivered at the end of a year that has tested the monarchy on multiple fronts. At face value, these stories seem far apart, but taken together, they sit side by side. A king, managing over. illness and authority in the present, an air shaping values for the future and the child prince quietly being introduced to the weight of what may one day lie ahead. So today we're stepping

back to look at the crown through three generations. And we're delighted to be joined by our brilliant guest, Eleanor Hayward. Welcome, Eleanor. Oh, thank you for having me. Eleanor, welcome to the Royals. Your health editor for the Times and health has been a huge part of our brief this year. It's been a huge part of the royal story nationally. We had both the King and the Princess of Wales last year diagnosed with cancer. We had the news this year that the princess was in remission. We've had the recent health update from the King. What do you read into all of that, how we're getting the updates, what message they've been trying to send in terms of the public narrative as well, the public health impact? Yeah, I think the whole thing's been fascinating.

And I think between them both, they've really kind of challenged perceptions of cancer. I think often there's a bit of a dichotomy when we talk about cancer. People think of, you know, you're either dying of cancer, you're on your deathbed, or you're cured and you're back to normal and everything's great. And so both the King and the Princess of Wales have shown that that's not the right way to look at it. You know, the Princess of Wales, she's recovering, but she's been very upfront about how recovery takes time and you're not suddenly back to normal. And I think that's really empowering for people who have had cancer in the past and still, you know, are still struggling with anxiety or with long-term side effects.

And I was sat with a group of women who are going to a support group for people who finish cancer treatment. And they actually brought up themselves. They were talking about how they got a lot of comfort from what Kate has been saying in public about it's still being a challenge. And just because you finish treatment, you're not suddenly back to normal. So I think that's probably been really empowering for a lot of people. There's been quite a nuanced message in that respect. They haven't tried to make it kind of cookie cutter. Kate sort of said, that's how it is.

It's not a kind of a linear progression. And same with the King. So nearly two years on since his diagnosis, we're now learning that he's going to be reducing his cancer treatment going forwards. I mean, one criticism, I suppose, that could be leveled at the royal household of the monarchy is that they haven't, either of them said what type of cancer, either of them have been diagnosed with. And while we know that Kate had chemotherapy, Buckingham Palace has never said what type of treatment the King has received. I mean, do you, what do you read into that?

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think the Palace say that they don't want to like prioritize attention on one type of cancer, did they? Which I think is potentially fair because I know, say, if they came out with the type of cancer, then all those charities would suddenly get all the attention and maybe others wouldn't get some. much. It feels speculation as well, doesn't we have lots of medical experts coming out and saying well life expectancy is this. Exactly. And I think that's something that they feel he's entitled to sort of a degree of privacy and dignity around his treatment as well. Yeah, definitely. And I know you'd get people jumping out and saying, well, I had this at this stage and this is what

happened to me. But it makes it kind of harder for them to maintain privacy if they were to go into much more detail about what they're having. So you think it's a right. option or certainly as you can see why they've done it this way. I think I can see why they've done it. I wonder if further down the line we might get more details, if they might come out and say what's happened or if I know Kate's not spoken in that much detail yet about her cancer and I wonder if maybe in a few years even she'd go into detail and then we'd get more information. We're going to come back to the King and Kate's health in a little bit. But first we want to talk about something that's just new news that we've been able to report, which was that Prince William

took Prince George, his elder son, to the passage, which is a homelessness charity that William is patron of. It's also the same charity that Diana used to take William to when he was a child to begin choosing him to the issue of homelessness, which of course has become one of his main causes that he champions awareness around it, awareness around housing. And he took George and there are wonderful pictures of this. And they've made cut. cupcakes. They helped decorate a tree. George was able to hear firsthand from some stories from some of the people who use the passage services, people who've experienced homelessness. And it is quite a big moment for George, isn't it, doing this? Because we have seen a sort of steady introduction to official duties. This year we saw for the video celebrations at the last minute he went along to the tea party with the veterans, but it wasn't a certain that he'd go. This is very personal, I think, to both William and it will be to George harking back to his mother. It's interesting, isn't it? Because it's a history repeating itself element to this

because Prince William was 11 when Diana took him. Prince George, of course, is 12. And this is him kind of showing him the family ropes. And although, obviously, George never had a relationship with, you know, Granny Diana, this is something, this is a way in which William can keep his mother closed. It was really interesting. We saw how much the passage meant to William last year when he was part of a documentary about his homelessness campaign, Homewards,

And we saw him go back to the passage. And there was a brilliant kind of scene in which William sat down with Mick Clark, who's this excellent chief exec of the passage. He's such a kind of larger than life character and remembers all the history of it. Yeah. Remembers when William was there as a youngster. And they were leafing through kind of pictures of them together. And I just think that's such a precious memory for William.

And it's tied to something that he feels so passionately about. And then, you know, this kind of king in training element to George Lerke, learning the road. I thought the timing was really interesting because I sat down with William a couple of years ago and interviewed him when he launched Homewards, which is the Homelessness Initiative. And I asked him, when do you think you're going to start introducing the children to this issue? He mentioned, obviously, when he did the school run, they would see homeless people, they would ask him about what was going on, what it meant, and he would talk to them. But in terms of going into charity, this is what he said. He said, I'd say to the children,

why are they there, what's going on? I think it's in all our interests. It's the right thing to do to expose the children at the right stage in the right dialogue so they have an understanding. They need to grow up knowing that actually, do you know what? Some of us are very fortunate. Some of us need a little bit more of a helping hand. Some of us need to do a bit more we can to help others improve their lives. And I think the timing of this is interesting because he feels now is the right time to start introducing George and probably the others to that. Why is now the right time? I suppose that was the time that his mother chose to introduce him to the subject of homelessness.

But also, you know, they've just moved into Forest Lodge, a big eight-bedroom mansion, grade two list of mansion in the Windsor Estate. They have lots of properties. You know, at the time when he did the documentary last year, William sort of acknowledged that it's a bit of a hard sell for him to be the champion for homelessness when he has so many homes himself. But his argument was, okay, well, the alternative is I do nothing. Yeah.

The echoing back to Diana, I think, is always. always interesting, both when William does it and when Harry does it. Because, you know, Centrepoint, the other Homelessness charity, which he's patron, Diana was patron of. I suspect his hope would be, by introducing George to these charities now, there's a hope that we keep going forwards in the next generation. And as he took on Centrepoint and the passage from his mother, George may take on those two at some point down the line. It comes also at a time when, you know, you and I were in Brazil recently with him. And, you know, we had. We arrived in Brazil amid crisis, a prince had just been deprinsed, Andrew.

And then at high crisis, you had this extraordinarily powerful image of William standing in a point at Christ the Redeemer statue, looking out over these mountains, literally, knowingly recreating an image of his mother who had stood there before. This echoes back to Diana too. What do you think he's trying to do with that? Well, I think he's trying to use the image of his mother. I think he has all, if you look at everything that William's done, he's always tried to keep his mother close to him.

You know, look at Kate's engagement ring, for example. He said on that engagement interview, he wanted her to be there as part of that special moment. And he's always wanted her to be close. We've seen in the past Mother's Day cards and cards that the children have created for Granny Diana, who isn't here. I think he's trying to link to keep that legacy alive, I think, and say I have a link to Diana too because he knows that Harry does that.

Harry does it all the time. What do you make of it, Ellen, because Diana obviously is sort of, even if you're not vaguely interested in the world, Diana is someone who sort of seems to cut through and project across the generations. No, absolutely. And I think, you know, among my generation, so I was only five years old, I think, when Diana died. But I think she's probably still the most famous member of the royal family in terms of my friends and people who we would talk about. And so I think she'll always be kind of iconic. And, you know, it makes sense for them to talk about her as much as they can.

Well, in the health brief as well, you know, she used to sit on people's bedsides and talked to them, you know, holding hands and hugging. HIV patients. HIV patients. You know, people who have previously been given a wide birth by people in the public eye, she really kind of did a lot to change the way we think about illness and health and homelessness. Definitely. And I think that you've seen with Kate and with Charles, they're challenging the stigmas around cancer patients and what they look like and sort of continuing Diana's legacy in that way and showing. that just because you've got an illness, even if it's a deadly illness, it doesn't mean that you need to be not spoken about and not talk. Well, that's why she is a disruptor, wasn't she, in some ways? And I think it's interesting talking about how Kate and Charles have managed their help, but they are disrupting that kind of perceived narrative of cancer patient gets cancer and then they,

you know, have chemotherapy and then they've got to get on with things. And Kate's saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, that is not how it works. You can never really go back to normal. Everything has changed. And Charles, it's, you know, not a particularly linear. path. We've got some good news now, but he still has cancer. There is no one size fits all to this. And I think that's what they're, they're sort of telling us. And that's what Diana was about too. I'm interested in as an outsider to our weird and sometimes wacky brief, that can be

quite niche. When you have images that we've seen, you know, just out of William taking George round a homelessness charity, making cupcakes, you know, helping to prepare the Christmas lunch, the words that is always on William's mind, which he's sort of spoken about before, is relevance, relevance of the royal family going forwards, being fit for purpose, being modern, having impact to having an under. That's a buzzword, isn't it? More of an understanding of how, you know, the other half live. When you see images like that, does it make them seem more relevant to people who aren't necessarily

into the royals that you've got a young prince going to homelessness shelter? I think sort of, but then I think also, you know, the charge of hypocrisy like you were saying before is just so easy to make. Yeah. They live in a massive mansion and, you know. Have many mansions. Yeah. And I think, well, exactly.

I just think I'm not someone who would make that a really cynical point about it. But if someone was to make that point, it's hard to go back against it. Because, you know, everyone's doing that bit and things like that. But especially at a time when I think the politicians you see doing really well in this media narrative, you know, can quite easily snap back and say, well, if they care that much about homelessness, why don't they give up some of their spare bedrooms in the palaces? And so I wonder whether to stay relevant, they need to be a bit more kind of go a bit further. So in terms of like the social housing that William is building in Cornwall, he needs to do much more. He needs to build many more units than that and broaden it out. Or even maybe just address the hypocrisy element.

Yeah. A bit up front and then see how that goes down. So we had that moment with William and George this week, which underlines a wider theme running through the monarchy this year. because while one generation is quietly being introduced to the values that shape public life, another has been navigating that authority under strain. Yeah, it brings us neatly to the other headline, of course, that dominated this week, which was that the King gave the message to Channel 4, stand up to cancer fundraiser last Friday. Eleanor, that was a video message in which he gave us a little bit of an update about his own situation,

as we've discussed. And tell us a bit more about what else he was trying to do there when he was speaking to people. Because they were very clear in providing guidance around it. He's not in remission. He's still getting treatment. He isn't cured. Yeah. So I think obviously we got this positive update about his own health in that his cancer

treatments being reduced. And it was quite clear that he wanted the broadcast to have a bit of a deeper purpose and more of a public health message. And so he fixed on the issue of screening, which I think is really interesting. And the screening uptake in the UK is relatively poor. Only about two thirds of people go to their appointments. These are people who are called and you get a letter through and say, you know, you can come for breast cancer screening or bowel cancer screening. Yeah, there's three screening programs run by the NHS, cervical, bowel and breast cancer.

An uptake has been falling since the pandemic. I think it's going up a bit slightly. And, you know, they're kind of uncontroversially a good thing. Every public health professional, every doctor would say go to a screening appointment. So I think it's quite telling that that's what they chose. sure there were a few different ideas floated around, but no one's going to say that an intervention in screening is a risky move or is controversial.

And his message was, I thought it was interesting, the language she used he said, don't let embarrassment stop you taking up your appointment. He says it can feel overwhelming. People avoid it because they imagine it might be frightening, embarrassing or uncomfortable. So he's sort of acknowledging why people don't do it. But then saying, get over yourselves.

Yeah. He's saying that those few moments of the screening are, discomfort, you know, they could be worth it because they could save your life. Yeah. And so I think that's really interesting. That was what he chose to intervene on. He was saying it was deeply troubling, wasn't it? The numbers were troubling to him.

It's obviously something he had been thinking about for a long time. Yeah, and it's also something that can make a huge difference because screening is the kind of key tool we have to improve early diagnosis. And early diagnosis of a cancer is the best way to improve survival rates. He used the example of bowel cancer where if you catch it early, then I think it's 90% of people will survive for 10 years. But if you catch it late, then only 10% survive. And that's the difference between going to your screening and not. So it's a message that really can save lives.

It's not the first time that we've heard members of the royal family, you know, either heard or seen them being used to try and encourage a sort of particular health policy. because during COVID, of course, we had the Queen who gave a couple of addresses to the nation, and one of them was about included the issue of vaccines. And she said, in her own mind, because there was so much controversy around the vaccines, they were developed very fast, there was not total uptake straight away. And she sort of said, I got mine done. It was very painless. It was just a scratch, you know, go and get it done.

And we had William and Kate. They had a photographer along to photograph them with their arms out getting their jabs and put those pictures out. So it was very sort of clear. But the king... The way, using the royal family for that kind of public messaging. Very strong messaging. But the king is able to connect in a way, you know, as you say, sort of almost one and two, because he's experienced it.

He is experiencing it. And that has an impact sort of beyond what we've seen before. It's also a bit like the homelessness issue, isn't it? That it's all very well for William to say that when he's got all those homes, when it comes to homelessness. It's all very well for the king to say, oh, you know, it's great to catch it early when he has access to the best doctors and lots of people in this country

struggled to get a GP appointment. But here, he's on really safe ground because he's saying, look, these are people who, you know, they're asking you to come in and have this screening. So please do take it up. So in that respect, in that messaging, he's on very safe ground

and can say, look, this is available to you. Please say yes. And what impact have we seen, Anna? Because we had a story in the Sunday Times about the actual real on-the-ground impact. a huge upsurge in people taking up the screening tool, didn't they? Yeah, massively. So it was 100,000 people used the tool in the first 24 hours it went live.

And that was just from the King's message, which is extraordinary. And I'm sure some of those, as a result, will have booked an appointment, would have realised they're behind on screening. And, you know, conceivably some lives could be saved because of that. So this is the online checker. You go in, you put your details. And then it says if you're able. So there's, say, if you're for breast screening, women are invited every three years

between the ages of 50 and 70, so you can use this tool to see, oh, I am eligible for breast screening. Have I had a mammogram in the past three years? No, I don't think I have. Oh, actually, I remember, I missed that letter. I ignored it. Maybe I should contact my GP surgery and book in. And so it's just very handy tool. It's not actually linked to the NHS. It's slightly separate. So people can use the screening checker and then contact their GP surgery independently. But I think also it will have an impact in that next time people get an invite for, from their GP for a screening appointment, maybe they're less likely to ignore it

because it's now more of a topic on their awareness. So, and we know from previous campaigns that when public figures speak out against screening, it does lead to a big increase. After Jade Goody, the TV personality died of cervical cancer in, I think, 2008, she was only in her 20s. Then rates of cervical screening uptake increased significantly. And the NHS said, like she herself,

saved a lot of lives just through that campaign. That's a great, and cervical cancer is such a great kind of success story anyway, isn't it? Because they've got the vaccine against HPV virus, which causes it. With those figures, though, I mean, you know, that kind of upsurge in people 100,000 in the 24 hours, one of the fundamental things it shows, which I think will be comforting to the king and comforting to Buckingham Palace at a time of, you know, percentage of people whose sported monarchy is down in the last 30 years, as we've been discussing. When the king speaks with an important public message, a lot of people are listening to what he's saying.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it shows the power of him and Kate's voices for when and if they want to use it to speak out about cancer because it is something that affects one in two people. And everyone's got a family member who's had cancer. It's something everyone cares about. And hopefully it will encourage them to speak out a bit more even in the future because some people will really listen and they're speaking with an authority of how. having had cancer themselves. Yes. So let's assume out of the health story now. 2025 really forced some choices for the king. It wasn't a year where things could simply be managed or deferred.

They had to be dealt with. So how do we assess the way the king dealt with some of the hardest institutional problems he faced? Well, first of all, I suppose what were those institutional problems of 2025? I mean, one one word that springs to mind. One word extended to three, Andrew Matt Batten, Wind. True. Yeah. Well, we certainly will talk about this a little bit more with Peter Conradi, who's going to be a guest on our show next week. Always fascinated to get the opinions to someone outside of our bubble. I mean, how do you think the king has fared with this huge problem

that's loomed over the monarchy and still does to a degree? Yeah. I mean, I think, I just think it's impossible to underestimate the impact that Andrew situation has had on the monarchy, because I'm, like, typical kind of millennial generation. where they don't pay that much interest to the royal family often, but I'll listen to podcasts about like pop culture and Taylor Swift and Andrew's name will be thrown in as a sort of joke. And I think it's made the monarchy a bit of a laughing stock. And so kind of the earlier, the better to cut him off, I think,

in terms of protecting the reputation of the monarchy in the long term. Many, many years. Yeah, maintaining relevance. Like, I think it was essential. It became very toxic, didn't it? I mean, we had the suicides of Virginia Dufray this year. which was an awful thing, really, and her kind of testimony from beyond the grave. Absolutely. It's just kind of, it plays into, like we said before, at the moment,

we're seeing a rise of populism in politics and quite an us v them and talk about the elite and having Andrew in the royal family, I think it puts the royal family very much as a them, not in us. And so the sooner he could have been cut off, I think, the better. I mean, people discuss, you know, the action that the king takes against Andrew, the way he deals with his relationship, his tricky relationship with Prince Harry. Does he separate the family firm, the family business from the more emotional side, the more sort of sentimental side of what he might be feeling about his relationship with his youngest son? I mean, you know, it's no great revelation that he's not incredibly close to Andrew

and has never really been incredibly close to Andrew, but it's different with Harry. And for a monarch, I can only imagine it must be sometimes quite hard to navigate between those two paths. Well, we saw that with the last monarch, didn't we? And I think that's the problem that we're in now, that Charles landed himself with now, is the Andrew problem because the late Queen didn't really properly deal with it because it was her son. And what will the problem that William will inherit when he ascends or exceeds to the throne? He may still inherit the Andrew problem. He might inherit the Andrew problem.

He might inherit the Harry problem because Charles hasn't really dealt with it. There have been attempts at reconciliation. They've been, it looked like there was. was an olive branch. They had that cup of tea meeting earlier this year. I think there's every sign. And then after that, there were recriminations. You know, we saw Harry's side accusing the palace of sabotaging the reconciliation by leaking details to a newspaper. On the other hand, we've had the palace hitting back saying that's just not true. And then we seem like we're back in square one again. It always seems to be the case with Harry

that gains are made. And then, you know, again, we find ourselves back at the start. I think there's every sign that, I mean, I think the king has tried to tread relatively gently with Harry where he can. I think there's probably every sign that come the next reign, whenever that may be and long live the king, that William will be a lot less sentimental than his father when it comes to dealing with the problems, would be my hunch. When it comes to dealing with the problems of Harry, I think, because, again, you know, he's, Charles has had to deal with the brother that his parents hadn't dealt with.

And I think, you know, and we talk about passing things down from generation. to generation, you know, there are good things that get passed down about, you know, the passion to help people who are homeless. And then we have the same old problems that seem to be circling around and around again. But then that's why they're called the royal family. It is a family. It's not a firm. And like any family, they have these issues.

Let's talk a little bit more about what the King actually did this year. Because despite the fact that he's been having ongoing weekly treatment for almost two years now, which is a very long time, all the data that's collated around his engagements shows that he actually has had the busiest year of his reign to date, which is kind of extraordinary. And he's made work an absolute priority. We've been told it's a tonic for him. He's taking a sort of mind, body and soul approach to his work. What do you make of that and what that shows about what he wants to demonstrate in terms of living with cancer? Yeah, I think it's interesting on so many levels. I think, I think first of all, like we said, he's kind of challenging this

perception that people get written off after they've got cancer. And that's something that a lot of doctors are talking about at the moment as well, that cancer treatments change so much over the past few decades. In many ways, it's gentler and is a focus on living with cancer and minimizing side effects. And I thought it was really interesting in his video message. The King said his recovery was a testimony to remarkable advances in cancer treatment in recent years. Obviously, we don't know what treatment he's had, but a lot of the newer generations of treatments are very personalized and very targeted. So it means it can spare some of the healthy cells. It means you can maybe carry on with life a bit more normally than if you

were having your entire body blitz by chemotherapy when you really can't do much else. So I think it says a lot that he's having, he's continuing with overseas trips, etc. while undergoing cancer treatment. And so, you know, maybe the treatment is quite targeted and quite tailored and is allowing him to live life as fully as he can. I know cancer charities as well are really grateful to him for challenging this perception that people are on their deathbeds where they've got cancer. And, you know, they say that they constantly talk about the need

for supporting people with cancer with things like maintaining jobs, even if that's helping them cut to part-time work and helping people carry on with hobbies, carry on with sports so that they're not written off by society and by employers. He has refused to be a part-time king, hasn't he? He's not having any of it. That's been to someone at the palace about, you know, the great news that he's going to have the cancer treatment reduced. And they said, well, it frees up a lot of time actually in the week for when he would have had his treatment.

And we would be hoping that he might use that time to kind of put his feet up. But no such luck. He's going to be filling it in engagements. But there was a kind of what they described at the time as a kind of bump in the road back in March where he met somebody in the morning as part of his job. And then he had his treatment. And then he had a wobble. essentially as I was described to me and ended up going to hospital just for a kind of once over just to be checked over.

But that was a bit of a worry. You know, how does that play into trying to manage these things around your everyday life? I mean, should he be taking it easier? We were told he'd had an adverse reaction to the treatment. Yes. Oh, really? Yeah, that day, yeah. Yeah, I think it's really interesting.

I think a lot of the evidence that's coming out about cancer shows that staying active is really good for recovery. There was a really interesting study out this year on bowel cancer patients showing that those who are put on an exercise program survived longer than those who weren't. And so doctors increasingly are saying to cancer patients, do whatever you feel able to try and use your energy wisely, but keep up with what you can, which is a different message to what people would have got a few decades ago. And so I guess there will be wobbles and he's an elderly man and everyone at that age has wobbles and whether they're related to the treatment or not. So I suppose he'll have the best medical team around him. And it's just a case of

not being too risky. He always says he walks like a goat. He walks so much. So he's just not one to slow down. Staying active. Yeah, I remember when he paused his treatment to go, when we went to Australia and Samoa last year and end of autumn 2024. And at the end of that, they said that the actual visit had been a real tonic to him. And that it's the kind of work that keeps him going. It gives him a reason to get up and keep going. And I suppose there's what the Princess of Wales talks about, the community aspect, feeling part of a community, having a reason to get up in the morning.

He'll be really hard to keep going with his legacy as well. He's legacy building. He's like, you know, as you said, he's 77 years old. There is a timeline that he looks ahead and thinks, I don't want to be this transitional monarch that some people have said I might be. I don't want to be the caretaker king that some people have said I should avoid becoming.

regardless of my illness, I want to keep going and establishing a legacy and building that legacy. I think one other powerful aspect, and this is when I mentioned before, I was chatting to a group of women who were recovering from cancer and they said, the Royals have made a big difference in helping their friends and family understand cancer and understand the reality of it. And so, you know, previously they might have been trying to be a bit active and their husband or friends would be saying, oh, you should be resting, don't get out of bed. And now they can say, no, you can do things while you've got cancer. Like, don't write me off.

And I think that's another area where the king, in being so active, will have helped a lot of people. I think he finds it all quite insulting this idea that he's just some transition king. He's kind of papering over the gap between Queen Elizabeth II and his son, who would be King William. And I think that's what he doesn't want to be seen as he wants to kind of make his mark. And Andrew isn't going to let there be a stain on that, you know, beginning of 2026, we've got this big program coming up about what he stands for, you know, the Harmony documentary.

And I think that's going to be kind of what drives him, isn't it? Do you agree with that? Yes. There are certain things, I suppose, that are out of his control and he will hope that Andrew doesn't continue to be a stain on his reign.

A stain on his reign, yeah. When he placed it alongside William, taking George to the passage, you know, it's how it all gets handed on, how the monarchy presents itself, how the future three kings three kings

one building a legacy now very timely the next one thinking about changes on my agenda and the next legacy and the youngest one the king and waiting

young Prince George thinking about this is what it's going to start to look like and a healable hope many many many many years time we three kings yeah indeed

so our huge thanks to Eleanor Hayward for joining us on this week for the royals so if 2025 has been the year that has tested the king. It may also be the year that has clarified his image, not as a monarch

defined by reinvention, but by judgment and by a willingness to act when the institution is at risk. And when you look ahead to our two future kings, William and George, is a reminder that leadership isn't only exercised in moments of crisis, but passed on for example, which is why what comes next matters so much. Next week, the king's will deliver his annual Christmas broadcast, a moment that arrives after the most demanding year of his reign. And before he gives that speech, we'll be asking what the king needs to say and why this may be the most important message of his reign so far. That's next week on the Royals. But for now, thank you for joining us.