What Charles III’s illness says about monarchs and mortality
Britain responds to the king’s cancer diagnosis
Britain has always been interested in its kings’ bodies. Each age has had its own particular obsession. For Shakespeare, it was the king’s head—the mortal brow beneath the hollow crown—that fascinated. After the Restoration it was the king’s hand—Charles II was believed to be able to heal diseases by touch alone. Now national attention has turned to the state of Charles III’s health.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Royal bodies”
Britain February 10th 2024
- How Britain lost its war on drugs
- What Charles III’s illness says about monarchs and mortality
- Britain’s economy will need rate cuts sooner rather than later
- A tiny right-wing party tries to menace Britain’s Conservatives
- The controversy over Britain’s planned Holocaust memorial
- Iran is targeting its opponents in Britain
- The former prime minister who fascinates the Labour Party
From the February 10th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party