King Charles hosts first Windsor investiture since most cancers analysis

The King today held his first investiture after being diagnosed with cancer, handing honours to luminaries such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dame Jilly Cooper.

Charles hosted the ceremony at Windsor Castle after being given permission by doctors to undertake the largest indoor engagement so far since his diagnosis.

It is the first investiture he has conducted for five months, with his last on December 19 coming a month before he was admitted to hospital for treatment on his prostate.

Many of those invested are being thanked for helping organise his Coronation, with Archbishop Justin Welby and Dean of Westminster David Hoyle both being knighted.

And Dame Jilly, 87, queen of the ‘bonkbuster’ novel, is being honoured for her services to literature and charity having recently published her 52nd book, ‘Tackle!’.

Charles and the Archbishop both beamed during the presentation, while the King also appeared to share a joke with Dame Jilly as she approached with a walking stick. Charles was later seen being driven from Windsor to London after the ceremony.

The 75-year-old monarch, who was given permission by his doctors to return to public duties last month, is greeting 52 recipients one by one at Windsor Castle.

Although this is his largest indoor ceremony for many months, the investiture is on a slightly smaller scale than usual.

Around 60 people, and sometimes more than 70, are typically invested with their honours, watched by their chosen guests.

Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverend Justin Welby has been made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) for his personal service to the Crown during the Coronation at Westminster Abbey in May last year.

The Archbishop is becoming only the second serving leader of the Church of England in recent history to be knighted. His knighthood was first revealed by the Daily Mail last year.

Awards of the Royal Victorian Order are in the King’s gift and are bestowed independently of Downing Street to people who have served the monarch or the royal family in a personal way.

The Archbishop conducted the service for the Coronation and had the momentous task of anointing and crowning the King and the Queen.

Meanwhile Dame Jilly, who is being honoured for services to literature and to charity, is known for her steamy fiction focusing on scandal and adultery in upper class society.

Her hit titles include ‘Riders’, ‘Rivals’, ‘Polo’, ‘Mount!’ and ‘The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous’.

Dame Jilly is a long-standing friend of Queen Camilla, and the author based her fictional seducer Rupert Campbell-Black partly on Camilla’s ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles.

Other recipients being honoured for their role in the Coronation include the Dean of Westminster Abbey, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, who was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).

Judith Weir, Master of the King’s Music, is becoming a Dame; and Household Division Brigade Major Lieutenant Colonel James Shaw is becoming a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO).

Lieutenant Colonel Shaw, on the horse Sovereign’s Shadow, led more than 4,000 servicemen and women in the grand coronation procession from the Abbey to the Palace which saw Charles and Camilla travel in the Gold State Coach after the historic ceremony.

The Queen’s deputy private secretary, Belinda Kim, is becoming a Lieutenant of the RVO as is the Receiver-General at Westminster Abbey, Paul Baumann.

Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett, who is standing down at the next election after 40 years representing Derby South, is being made a Dame Grand Cross.

The King, who is receiving treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer, has invested a handful of people with honours over the past few months, but this took place in private during individual audiences at royal residences.

Last month it was revealed that the King’s medical team had given him permission to begin to undertake more public engagements, although he has been working hard behind the scenes throughout.

He still has an undisclosed form of cancer and is continuing to undergo treatment, but his doctors are sufficiently pleased at his progress that he will now be allowed to undertake more ‘forward-facing’ duties.

He hosted a garden party last week and is hopeful of attending key events such as the D-Day commemorations and Trooping the Colour.

Camilla has said several times that she has had trouble ‘holding him back’, while the King said last week that he was delighted to be ‘out of my cage’.

Yesterday, Charles officially handed over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to his son Prince William during a visit to its Hampshire airfield.

The King – who became the inaugural holder of the title 32 years ago – met with his eldest son in a rare joint official engagement at the Middle Wallop base to transfer the role.

The Army Air Corps is the Duke of Sussex’s old unit, in which he served as an Apache helicopter commander and co-pilot gunner during his second tour to Afghanistan in 2012.

The King’s decision to hand the role to William was seen as a blow to Prince Harry when it was announced last year.

Yesterday’s visit came less than a week after Harry travelled to the UK to mark ten years of the Invictus Games, without meeting up with his father and brother.

The Duke went onto Nigeria where he carried out a quasi-royal tour of Abuja and Lagos with his wife Meghan Markle between Friday and Sunday last week.

Since then, sources close to Prince Harry and Meghan have claimed the Archewell Foundation was branded ‘delinquent’ because state officials did not process a $200 (£160) cheque.

The organisation was also billed as ‘not in good standing’ by the Registry of Charities and Fundraisers – part of the Department of Justice in California, the state where the Duke and Duchess live in a £12million mansion and operate the charity.

The registry said Archewell failed to properly submit its annual report or renewal fees and has banned it from either fundraising or distributing charitable funds for now.

But Sussex sources claimed today that the ‘delinquency notice’ was actually issued because Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office did not process the $200 cheque.

This was a different explanation to the one offered by the same Sussex sources last night, who claimed that the paperwork was filed on time but the discrepancy was down to a cheque which accompanied the documents going missing in the post.