King Charles’s cancer diagnosis sets Buckingham Palace machinery into motion

Procedures and protocol will ensure the business of ruling goes on as king has treatment for disease

With King Charles's cancer diagnosis and uncertainty over when he will return to full public duty, the palace machinery, which is primed to deal with foreseeable eventualities, will swing into action.

Precedent and protocol, enshrined in statutes and dictated in regal letters patent over successive reigns, have been designed to ensure as little disruption as possible to the performance of the core constitutional duties of the sovereign.