Cancer has been a rare disease in the Royal Family in recent decades, with only one British monarch in the 20th century dying before the age of 60.
Both of Charles’s parents, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, died well into their nineties, with ‘old age’ being listed as the cause of their demise on both their death certificates.
There has been speculation that the late Queen may have been suffering from a painful form of bone marrow cancer, as Gyles Brandreth claimed in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait.
This has never been confirmed and as the Queen always kept tight-lipped about her health during her lifetime, it is possible the truth will never be known.
Her father King George VI died relatively young, at the age of 56, on February 6 1952 from a coronary thrombosis, or blood clot in the blood vessels or arteries of the heart.
Five months before his death he had undergone an operation to remove his left lung following a diagnosis of lung cancer, as he had been a heavy smoker throughout his life.
News about his lung cancer was not made public straightaway, as royal aides initially gave the reason for the operation as “structural abnormalities”.
George’s older brother Edward VIII, who infamously abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, also died from cancer likely related to smoking.
He died in his French home close to Paris in 1972 aged 77, with his wife outliving him by nearly 14 years as she died a recluse in 1986 aged 89.
Smoking also contributed to the death of Charles’s great-grandfather King George V in 1936, when he passed away aged 70 due to chronic bronchitis.
The King himself is not a smoker, already putting him in a stronger position to fight the disease.
