Despite his ongoing cancer treatment, the King is hoping to resume twice-yearly overseas trips with the Queen from next year, subject to doctors’ approval.
The couple have finished their tour to Australia and Samoa, in which the King delivered his first speech as head of the Commonwealth. They spent their final day thanking their host village, where the King was given another chief title in a ceremony.
As they departed, they sent a message to the host countries, thanking them for the “warmest of welcomes” and “countless fond memories we will carry in our hearts for many years to come”.
The King, speaking at a farewell ceremony after four days on the Pacific island nation, told his hosts: “I shall always remain devoted to this part of the world and hope that I survive long enough to come back again and see you.”
He has “genuinely loved” this tour, a senior palace official said, and has “genuinely thrived” on the schedule, which has seen him complete up to 10 engagements per day.
A palace official says the tour lifted the King's spirits, mood and recovery. Photo / Getty Images
The tour lifted “his spirits, his mood and his recovery”, the official said, adding: “In that sense, the tour – despite its demands – has been the perfect tonic.”
On the decision to press ahead with the long-haul travel, for which the King paused his cancer treatment, the aide said: “I think it’s great testament to the King’s devotion to service and duty that he was prepared to come this far and he was incredibly happy and very, very determined to do so.”
Describing how the King is a “great believer” in “mind, body and soul” when it comes to his cancer treatment, they added that His Majesty’s “sense of duty” in going on the 10-day trip had “worked very well” for him.
His “mind and soul” were “engaged” during the trip, they said, while his personal doctor travelled with him to ensure his “body is properly looked after”. It resulted in a “very successful visit in these circumstances”, the official claimed.
The palace has been so buoyed by the success of the trip, it is understood, that the Government has been notified that the King is available for future travel in line with his pre-cancer schedule.
“We’re now working on a pretty normal-looking full overseas tour programme for next year, which is a high for us to end on, to know that we can be thinking in those terms,” said the official, emphasising that it would be subject to sign-off by the King’s doctors.
The King and Queen spent their final day in Samoa in Siumu village, where they took part in a traditional ava ceremony and thanked the locals who had hosted them during their four-day stay.
Photographs show them having a morning walk on the beach, at the end of a programme which saw the King deliver a major speech to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) touching on slavery reparations, the Queen open a pre-school named in her honour, a myriad of traditional welcomes, and the King crowned High Chief.
Before Samoa, they spent six days in Australia, where the King shared a hug with an Aboriginal elder, was shouted at in Parliament by a senator who told him “You’re not my King”, and took a royal walkabout with 10,000 people in front of the Sydney Opera House.
In what was described as “hardly a light programme”, the King also completed his red boxes of state business as usual, having them flown out to keep up with his duties. The most recent was brought on the Prime Minister’s plane, as he attended CHOGM.
King Charles spent six days in Australia before going to Samoa. Photo / Getty Images
Of the intervention of Lidia Thorpe, who shouted “f--- the colony” in protest for Aboriginal rights, a palace official said the King was “completely unruffled”.
“He’s been around a long time,” they said. “As always, [he] kept calm, carried on.”
The King himself believes that “free speech is the cornerstone of democracy, and so everyone is entitled to their views”, they added.
The tour has included numerous potential pitfalls, including republican campaigners in Australia and pressure for slave trade reparations at CHOGM.
The issues were “not ducked”, the palace official said, noting it is “very easy to run away from some of these issues. But the King isn’t one for doing that.
“He is always someone who wants to understand before he says anything,” they said. “He’s a listener more than he’s a talker.”
As the palace begins to plan the next tours, it is working on the basis that the King and Queen want to leave “a trace behind” in the country they have travelled to, in the form of legacy projects. On this trip, a fellowship for students from small Commonwealth island nations was announced.
The palace official added: “It is hard to overstate the joy that [the King] takes from duty and service and being in public, and seeing those crowds engaging with communities across the spectrum. That really does lift the spirits. You can see that.
“The King gets great strength from the Queen being there, not least because then she keeps it real.”
As they departed the island, Buckingham Palace social media shared a message, signed Charles R and Camilla R, telling the public: “As our visits to Australia and Samoa come to a close, my wife and I would like to thank both nations for the warmest of welcomes and for the countless fond memories we will carry in our hearts for many years to come.
“Even when we are far apart in distance, the many close connections that unite us across the globe and through our Commonwealth family have been renewed, and will remain as profound as they are enduring.”
