When King Charles was crowned just over a year ago, nobody, not even the king himself, could have predicted the first year of his reign would play out as it has. Just nine months after his coronation, watched by some 400 million people around the world, in a coincidence as bizarre as it was unprecedented, the monarch and his beloved daughter-in-law the Princess of Wales were both admitted to the same London hospital within days of one another. And then the one-two punch of why: Despite initial assurances that neither condition was believed to be cancerous, the palace announced that Charles had in fact been diagnosed with cancer, and after several weeks of brutal speculation and online conspiracy theories, Kate had too.

The earlier hospitalization announcements, released to the public just hours apart, were only part of what would eventually come out. Where the king was concerned, the palace did not specify which type of cancer, only that it was not prostate, and explained that the monarch would take a break from public engagements while he received outpatient treatment. The princess’s situation seemed different from the outset. At first, the public learned that she’d spend up to two weeks at the London Clinic after undergoing “planned” major abdominal surgery and would return to her duties around Easter. Pressed, the palace announced the unspecified condition was “noncancerous.” But while she was recovering, Princess Kate received the shocking news that she too had cancer.

It was a defining moment in royal history.

With both the king and the Princess of Wales temporarily out of action, Prince William announced he would be taking time off to look after his wife and their young family. The palace, keen to play down any sense of panic, called the apparent crisis a “blip,” insisting the king was upbeat about his prognosis and would return to work as soon as he was given the greenlight by his medical team. With Kate, there was less guidance as to when the princess would return to public duties.

For once, the palace did not have a game plan. This was not a public scandal or a crisis like an abdication. Nevertheless it forced a rethink for Charles in terms of his slimmed-down monarchy and how best to serve the people. The mighty House of Windsor, which not long ago had the world’s longest reigning monarch at its helm, suddenly seemed very vulnerable.

While the king was supported by other family members who ensured the wheels kept turning, the absence of William and Kate was notable. “Without Catherine, it all seems rather flat. The future of the monarchy is William and Catherine,” says Patrick Jephson, the former private secretary to Diana, Princess of Wales. “And, as we know from any superficial study of the British royal family, it’s the women who pull the show together, who get out there and make things happen. So how fragile is the monarchy? Well, it’s as fragile as Catherine is and at the moment, we don’t know.”

Princess Kate attended Trooping the Colour, the king’s official birthday parade, on June 15, with only a day’s notice—a reminder of her inner strength, and popular import. Having “turned a corner,” says a source close to the princess, in her treatment, she felt well enough to ride in a carriage with her three children and stand alongside the king on the balcony. In a message on social media, the princess also gave a rare health update, sharing that she is still undergoing preventative chemotherapy and is making “good progress” but that she is “not out of the woods,” noting she has “good days and bad days.”

The palace took pains to stress that Kate’s appearance at Trooping the Colour did not signal a return to full-time work, but that she hopes to attend a handful of engagements over the summer. It was a glimmer of uplift in what has been an incredibly challenging year for the royal family.

“The intense public emotion that greeted Catherine’s brave appearance at Trooping underlined her crucial importance to the monarchy,” says Jephson. “Without her, the institution would surely be reduced to a shadow of itself. Given the Windsors’ drastically thinned ranks, she is the crown’s best hope by far. She combines duty and beauty with a piercing vulnerability second only to Prince William’s mother.”

The late Queen Elizabeth had reigned for four decades before her infamous “annus horribilis” in 1992, when three of her children’s marriages fell apart and Windsor Castle caught fire. With this year, there has been a sense of foreboding that Charles’s annus infandus has come much too soon. Having acceded to the throne at the age of 73 (the oldest monarch in history to do so), the big question was whether he would be able to finish the work he had waited decades to start and seemed impatient to get on with. As well as the cornerstones of his life’s work, which include conservation and sustainability, Charles has earmarked the early years of his reign to reshape the royal household, shake up the royal residences, and future-proof the monarchy. According to sources close to the king, who recently announced plans to open more royal palaces to the public, he has been “frustrated” that his health problems are holding him up.

Meanwhile, Kate’s cancer diagnosis has come as an even bigger shock. The 42-year-old mother was just hitting her stride as the new Princess of Wales, working in her field of early childhood development and looking forward to a busy schedule of engagements and overseas tours with William, when her life was turned upside down.

As she and her husband and their immediate families came to terms with the devastating news—no one beyond the Middletons and the king and queen were told about Kate’s cancer at first—they worked out how to tell their three children. According to an aide, Kate was determined to be honest with them and told them in a way they could understand.

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With three key players out of action, the royal family relied on the 73-year-old Anne, Princess Royal, and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Prince Edward and his wife, Sophie. But it felt like the monarchy was running out of star power. There was talk of dusting off the Regency Act (it’s invoked when the heir is required to stand in for the monarch if they are incapacitated), but because the king continued his state duties, including weekly sessions with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Privy Council meetings, and official correspondence, there was no need to do so.

William took a break from engagements to care for his wife and their young children, leaving the lion’s share of the workload to Queen Camilla, who stood in for the king on Commonwealth Day at Westminster Abbey and traveled around the UK on official engagements. If she was feeling the strain, she didn’t show it, rising to the occasion with professionalism and grace. It was an extraordinary moment: Camilla, who had once cast doubt on the future of the monarchy as the mistress blamed for the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage, was now the person keeping the royal show on the road.

“The king is so proud of his wife and how she has supported him while continuing with her work during such a hard time,” says a family friend.

“As for the queen, she takes great joy in supporting her husband even when she has been worried sick about him, but the irony is wasted on no one that it’s Camilla who has stepped up during this difficult time.”

The king is said to be acutely aware of the pressures on the core family members, not least his wife and eldest son. Behind closed doors there is talk that in the absence of Harry and Meghan, the king could ask Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, the Duke of York’s daughters, who attended a recent garden party at Buckingham Palace with Prince William, to carry out more royal engagements both in the UK and overseas. “Charles is fond of his nieces. He thinks they have grown into very sensible women who could be a real asset,” reveals a source close to the king. “It is something being considered.”

Adds a second palace insider: “The royal family has always shown a propensity for learning from past experience and adjusting. It’s one of the great chameleon organizations of the world in that sense, and I think therefore there will be someone saying, ‘Let’s reassess this slimmed-down monarchy.’ ”

Rumors in the press that Harry, who recently returned to the UK for the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, is keen to assist his father with royal duties overseas are wide of the mark. Harry and Meghan’s trip to Nigeria, while not an official royal tour, appeared to have all the trademarks of one and generated mostly positive press for the couple. During Harry’s three-day trip to the UK in May, there was no meeting with his father. Harry was said to be deeply disappointed that Charles prioritized official engagements, including a palace garden party, over him. “While there has been a thawing of relations between father and son, there are still trust issues,” confides a family friend. “Charles was very hurt by some of the things Harry said about Camilla in his book. As for relations between Harry and William, there is a complete breakdown of trust.”

With Harry and Meghan out of the royal lineup, there is a pressing need for more hands on deck. The king and queen were expected to travel to Australia later this year. However, it is still uncertain as to whether Charles, who returned to public engagements at the end of April, will be fit enough to travel globally.

“When you get down to this few active operators, places are not getting visited. Those hands are not being shaken,” observes Jephson. “Nobody’s getting the nice sunny smile, and that has always been a critical part of the monarchy’s charm. It’s where the bedrock of its loyalty is built both in the UK and overseas.”

Sending William and Kate and their children overseas would, ordinarily, be a way to shore up support further afield, but with a question mark over when Kate will return to work, all plans are currently on hold.

When the princess did make an appearance to tell the world about her diagnosis—after a frenzy of speculation, cruel rumors on social media, and an alleged attempt by three staff members at the London Clinic to hack into her private medical records—she was frail, but she maintained she was doing well. She had waited until the children were off school for the Easter holidays before her televised announcement, to protect them from the media interest. In her familiar clip, she said she was shocked to have been diagnosed with cancer and revealed she was undergoing chemotherapy. When she spoke about her children, her voice wobbled. She ended her message with words of support for anyone touched by cancer, assuring, “Please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone.”

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It marked a new level of transparency for the royal family, and it was a powerful leveler.

“It was her decision to share her message with the nation about her journey,” reveals a long-standing aide. “That is an incredible example of the inner strength that she has as an individual. It shows a huge amount of courage, and I think a lot of people have taken inspiration from that.”

People familiar with the prince and princess say it has been “a terribly hard time” for the family, but that the princess is resilient.

“Catherine has an inner strength, she’s a strong person and she will be drawing on that,” says the Waleses’ former private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, who has known the princess for more than a decade. “That strength has been very useful when there has been turmoil in her life.”

Adds one friend: “The princess has William by her side, they are an incredibly strong team, and they will get through this. Their children are their absolute focus.”

When Kate was in the hospital, she did not want her children to see her in a gown and hooked up to monitors and tubes, so only William visited, and she made do with video calls home every day. “Things were so normal at home that George was playing a rugby match against another school while Kate was hospitalized,” notes a friend. At home, normality prevails, and publicly too. Birthdays have been marked with official photographs taken by the princess (Louis turned six in April and Charlotte nine in May) while William and Kate marked their 13th wedding anniversary on April 29 with the release of a previously unseen black-and-white photograph.

“William is a human being like everyone else, and it’s been a really difficult time for him too,” says an aide. “I think what’s important to him is that he’s there to support his wife and his children while continuing with his public duties.”

When William returned to work after the Easter holidays, the Middletons cocooned Kate. Her mother, Carole, was photographed driving Kate through Windsor while she was recovering from surgery, triggering ever more frenzied speculation about her condition.

When the palace released a picture of Kate and the children on Britain’s Mother’s Day, it was designed to quash the fevered speculation. Instead, the image set off a major PR disaster after several international newswires stopped distributing it because it had been manipulated, which Kate ultimately said was her fault.

“The information vacuum that the palace did not have the good sense to fill with honest, harmless stuff allowed these wild conspiracy theories to grow up,” says Jephson, who believes the palace should have been more open from the outset. “The emotional connection between the crown and the people is centuries old. Any time in history when the connection is lost or neglected has not played out well. The public’s love for the monarchy is its greatest strength. Its greatest guarantee of longevity. It is a delicate flower. It’s not the monarchy that’s delicate, it’s that love of the monarchy that’s delicate.”

A poll conducted by Sky News at the time showed the princess’s popularity had not been dented. According to a royal source: “Ultimately, the princess wanted to share that picture to bring joy to people on Mother’s Day, and I think it did. The nation really did appreciate that and now understands what she and her family are going through right now and want to give her the space and time to recover.”

According to a royal aide, “Lessons were learned,” and William and Kate were floored by the reaction.

As Lowther-Pinkerton points out, the fallout over the Mother’s Day photograph was not Kate’s first rodeo, and she is known for keeping a cool head. “She always keeps things in proportion. Back in 2012 we were on a tour of the Far East and the photographs of her sunbathing broke, which was not easy,” he recalls. “I’m sure there were moments when she was upset and angry, but to us, she was really cool. She was single-minded about it and insisted on going ahead with the program. That’s when I thought, We’ve got somebody special here.”

According to Lowther-Pinkerton, the Waleses’ marriage is stronger than ever, built on a foundation of friendship and love. “These are two people who really know each other. The strength of their marriage can’t be overstated.”

“They have created the most normal life for their children they can,” says an aide. “They take the children to school and then they’re out on engagements up and down the country, which they relish and enjoy. They are really driven by creating legacy and impact through the work they do.” The cornerstones of their work include their charity the Royal Foundation, the princess’s early years work and William’s Earthshot. The prince is now overseeing the Duchy of Cornwall and is, according to the aide, “very much in the driving seat.”

And contrary to reports she may not return to full-time duties, according to aides, the princess “will pick up where she left off” as soon as she is well enough.

As for the future, the prospect of one day being queen doesn’t faze her, even in this moment of vulnerability. “It doesn’t worry her or keep her awake at night,” says a friend. “She just wants her kids to be a bit older before she has to step up to the big job. The fact is she was born for the job, it’s almost ingrained in her.”

“They’ve had a master class in preparation,” says Lowther-Pinkerton. “They have always been careful not to rush fences and to make sure they got each phase of their life right, and then build on that. They’ve been able to have some space and time as a couple and as a family, and do the things that are important to them before having to devote themselves entirely to the nation and the British people. When the moment comes, and let’s hope it’s later rather than sooner, they will be more than ready.”