King Charles Will Take Part in Major Ceremony Amid Cancer Treatment

King Charles III will take part in a major royal ceremony at Windsor Castle in Berkshire next week, just two days after Trooping the Colour in London and while the monarch is still receiving treatment for cancer, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

Charles and Queen Camilla will attend the annual Garter Day celebrations held at Windsor on June 17. The event sees the monarch meet with and install new members of the Order of the Garter, England’s oldest and most-senior order of chivalry.

The Order of the Garter is restricted in its membership to just 24 knights, in addition to companions, select members of the royal family and the sovereign. The king exclusively chooses who is appointed to the order.

Garter Day takes place each June and sees the installation of new members of the order in a ceremony held in Windsor Castle’s Garter Throne Room. There is a lunch for new and existing members, held in the castle’s Waterloo Chamber. Then, the group put on their Tudor-style blue velvet robes and caps before processing on foot to St. George’s Chapel. where there is a church service to mark the occasion.

In recent years, the day’s events have drawn increased focus, with debate around Prince Andrew’s involvement. He was appointed a member of the order in 2005 by Queen Elizabeth II. He has not attended the public aspects of the Garter Day celebrations since 2019. Later that same year, Andrew stepped down from royal duties after giving a car-crash TV interview in which he failed to distance himself from allegations surrounding his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In 2021, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Andrew, saying that she was sexually assaulted by the prince when she was 17. Andrew strongly denied the allegations, and the lawsuit was settled out of court in 2022.

The prince had ceased being a working royal and had his military patronages stripped from him in the course of the allegations. However, Andrew retained his Garter honor, making him eligible to attend the annual Garter Day events.