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W.while Kate Middleton has been absent from royal duties for two months due to “planned abdominal surgery,” the British public has been abuzz with speculation about what is happening with her future queen consort. But The royal family has always walked a fine line between balancing private health matters with disclosure to the public they serve.
“You could argue that details about a head of state are in the public interest,” says Richard Fitzwilliams, an expert on the royal family. “But on the other hand, to what extent does a public figure have a right to privacy?”
Kate’s absence fits into a long and evolving story of how the royals have chosen to handle health issues. Past generations often kept them secret. Perhaps most famously, in the 1950s the British public was not told when King George VI had lung cancer. In 1951, his left lung was removed due to what were vaguely described as “structural abnormalities,” and cancer was not mentioned in the announcement of his death.
Sometimes past generations would be more open about less important issues. Once, in 1982, when Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, had to visit the hospital after nearly choking to death on a fish bone, she issued a statement to the press, joking: “It was only the salmon that got even.” .
“The fishbone is quite telling because they tended to be more open about minor cases,” he says Gareth Russell, historian and author who focuses on the British royal family. “Britain was a much more secretive society in the 20th century, and in families across the country and across the social spectrum, cancer or life-threatening illnesses were often not discussed.”
Kate and William’s approach has proven to be completely different, as they have addressed private matters much more candidly. “Kate and William are members of a different generation, so they are not ashamed to be open about challenges,” says Clare McHugh, royal historian and author.
Neither Kate nor William have shied away in the past to talk about health issues. Prince William has spoken extensively about the importance of mental health and Kate opened up about the difficult morning sickness she faced during her pregnancies. She also revealed her postpartum baby bump in photos hours after giving birth to her son, Prince George.
In part, it’s a necessary tactic in the Internet age, where secrets are much harder to keep. “I think they recognize that to survive and thrive in a modern era they need to be honest about what’s happening to them,” McHugh says. “It is better for them to be honest from the beginning than to let rumors fly on the Internet.”
According to experts, the fact that they have been somewhat transparent before only highlights their current silence. “That’s why William and Kate’s reticence about what’s happening to them is strange,” McHugh says.
As Kathryn Lamontagne, a professor of social sciences at Boston University, says, sometimes saying nothing causes more of a stir than addressing the problem head-on, a lesson the Royal Family learned when Queen Elizabeth II missed parts of a major event in the months before his death. death. “For Royal fans, her absence from the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022 was a clear sign of how unwell she was and a clear indicator of a serious problem on the horizon,” Lamontagne said in an email. .
Still, despite her outspokenness in the past, in many ways the Duchess of Cambridge’s silence simply follows tradition. “This dance between public and private information pushes the line between medical privacy and public clamor for details, but still follows a pattern of giving too few medical details of a certain type to the public,” Lamontagne says. “‘Never complain, never explain’, in the words of the late Queen.”