During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the monarch had gone to great lengths to keep health matters private, but had she lived, she would’ve likely admired Kate’s ‘strength’ in going public with her cancer diagnosis

Two years on since Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the Royal Family has been rocked by a number of serious health scares, with the cancer diagnoses of King Charles and Kate Middleton among some of the most worrying. Yet despite the potentially life changing health battles, the Royal Family have continued to soldier on, however this year in particular one royal expert believes that they will be feeling the absence of the late monarch more than ever.

“I think they all miss her guiding hand,” Andrew Morton, author of The Queen: 1926-2022 told OK! “With the Queen as head of state and head of the family, they’d all bedded down quite nicely into their roles, and now everything’s been jolted around. All the illness which has assailed so many of the senior royals has knocked the whole edifice back on its heels.”

Under The Queen’s watchful eye, much of her reign followed a traditional approach to life in the royal spotlight, with far more things kept private, than were released into the public domain. However, following her death the family has embraced a much more ‘open’ approach to their otherwise mysterious life, with a relaxed and relatable attitude to life in the spotlight having seen them address the public far more readily.

Nothing exemplified this shift more than the King and Kate’s decision to make their cancer diagnoses public knowledge, a move that would likely have irked the Queen considerably.

“There’s no question that the person who most wanted medical things to be kept private was the Queen,” says Andrew. “As soon as the Queen died, you didn’t need to be clairvoyant to know that on the death certificate it would just say ‘old age’, as it had with Prince Philip. Even in death they weren’t going to give much away.”

By contrast, Kate’s decision to speak openly about her cancer diagnosis earlier this year and bring an end to months of speculation, was a break from the Queen’s preferred order of business – but it was also crucially the right choice, believes Andrew.

“The fact that Kate made a very touching piece to camera at Kensington Palace was a very different approach and a genuine step change in the way the royal family deals with illness,” he says. “And given the public fascination with what was wrong with Kate and the hysteria surrounding it, I think it was a very shrewd move, as it burst that balloon of conjecture.”

The decision was also supported by royal expert Duncan Larcombe, who told the publication that he felt The Queen would have been “proud” of Kate for taking such a bold move, even if she herself would’ve been reluctant to do so.

“I think she would have been tremendously proud of how she’s dealt with it, especially with such a brave video,” the expert quips. “We all worry about our kids and how they’re growing up, but when one of your jobs as a mother is to bring up a future king, the stakes couldn’t be higher.”