King Charles returned to work on Tuesday & still plans to travel to Italy

King Charles was briefly hospitalized last Thursday, and the news of the hospitalization was embargoed until his release. Buckingham Palace quickly canceled several events and outings for Charles, and he spent this past weekend at Highgrove, all alone except for household staff. His wife spent the weekend at her separate home, Ray Mill. Charles was back in London on Monday, and then on Tuesday, he did his first event since his hospitalization. Palace aides are still saying that he and Camilla plan to travel to Italy next week.

King Charles is back on royal duty just days after he was hospitalized due to side effects of his cancer treatment. The King, 76, carried out an investiture ceremony of worthy and well-deserving members of communities across the U.K. at Windsor Castle on Tuesday, April 1.

It was his first official appearance after he was briefly admitted to the London Clinic on March 27. At the time, the palace said that “the King experienced temporary side effects that required a short period of observation in [the] hospital.”

Later that day, he returned to his London residence, Clarence House, and attended to his state papers. However, the King has taken it slow since, canceling a series of engagements in Birmingham scheduled for March 28.

On the advice of medical staff, he is pacing himself before he and Queen Camilla head to Italy on April 7. Some engagements for the end of this week have been moved, palace officials confirmed.

On March 31, palace aides confirmed to PEOPLE that the King had a “restful” weekend at his country home Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, England. It is expected that this week he will carry out a series of duties that take him from the investiture at Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace and on outings in London. He will also hold his weekly in-person meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

[From People]

Here’s the thing – unlike the squirreliness around QEII’s health in the last year of her life, I actually took the briefings about Charles’s health at face value. Certainly, last year I thought they were putting a rosy gloss on what was a very serious situation, but I also thought, hey, Charles IS receiving treatment and he’s doing so pretty openly. We saw him look mealy, exhausted and drawn… and then his color seemed to improve and he looked perkier overall. I thought everything was going pretty well, all things considered. But yeah, I am starting to wonder if the palace is keeping the general public in the dark. We know he’s still receiving treatment and he still has cancer. We know that he felt ill enough to go to the hospital last week. We know the courtiers are canceling events right and left. And we also know that there’s a sense of quiet panic at the thought of Peggy the Unprepared taking over.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.