Unpacking the Royal Family’s Wild, Whirlwind Year

Britain’s royal family is no stranger to scandal and tragedy, but a pile-up of happenings, starting with Kate Middleton and King Charles III’s cancer diagnoses, shook the institution to its core.

It isn’t a coincidence that Prince William picked this year—which he has called the hardest in his life—to grow a beard.

While it was undeniably a strong move aesthetically, the 42-year-old getting high marks (except from 9-year-old daughter Princess Charlotte) for his rugged new look, beards are known to symbolize maturity, status and formidability.

All of which is expected of the future king whether he’s ready or not.

While the Prince of Wales has known grief—and the royal family is no stranger to scandal, tragedy, schisms and other palace-rattling events—the last 12 months have been a lot for the descendants of Queen Elizabeth II, whose mostly hale 70 years on the throne set what quickly proved to be an inimitable precedent.

With both King Charles III, 76, and his daughter-in-law Kate Middleton, 42, undergoing cancer treatment in 2024, never in recent memory has the literal health of the institution seemed so in peril. (Even the most robust royal in the land, 74-year-old Princess Anne, was briefly hospitalized with a head injury that her doctors deemed consistent with an impact from a horse.)

“Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult,” William told reporters during his visit to Cape Town, South Africa, to award the fourth annual Earthshot Prize in November. “I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view…it’s been brutal.”

“The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family,” the Princess of Walessaid in a video posted on social media in September that included the rarest of montages of her driving, snuggling with her husband, rambling through the woods with Prince George, 11, Charlotte and Prince Louis, 6—moments the public does not normally see.

“Life as you know it can change in an instant and we’ve had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown,” she continued. “The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you.”

The monarchy would be taking too much of a risk if it went all the way out and revealed everything,” royal correspondent Sharon Carpenter told E! News after Charles shared his cancer diagnosis in February, “because there’s something to be said about this infallible nature, this keeping calm and carrying on, there’s a lot of respect around that.”

But the newer way is here to stay, she observed.

“Showing that they’re human, that they go through the same things that we go through—a lot of people have softened toward King Charles,” Carpenter continued. “This more human side of the royal family is going to continue to win people over.”

The public is also seeing “a much more relaxed side” of William and Kate, she added, “and moments of emotion. The royals seem a lot more relatable in this day and age.”