As King Charles gazes into his brightened shaving mirror this morning, he’ll notice a face that has notably transformed over the past year.

While the reflection might reveal slightly deeper lines and cheeks bearing a more weathered look, the glimmer in his eyes tells a different tale.

For a ruler who, in his youth, often leaned towards introspection, it’s likely he’ll ponder what 2026 holds for him and the royal family.

The pressing question on his mind must be whether it could possibly be more challenging than 2025.

This past year has been filled with upheaval, with the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor saga threatening to overshadow not only the Royal Family’s good deeds but also the enduring stability of the House of Windsor and its connection to the public’s sentiments.

Debates over the former prince’s occupancy of Royal Lodge—soon to be vacated—have stirred a Labour Party eager to divert focus from its own governmental shortcomings, prompting calls for a broader review of royal properties and their reportedly favorable leasing terms.

Prince Edward’s possession on preferential terms of vast Bagshot Park could yet become as awkward an issue this year as Andrew’s and Royal Lodge was last year.

Though, as we shall see, an imaginative solution may prevent a repeat of the widespread public outcry which dogged the former Duke of York’s refusal to give up the 30-room mansion that was once home to the Queen Mother.

However, amid such a climate it would not take much for Left-wing MPs, sniffing an opportunity – and royal blood – to demand a wider audit of the wealth of the Windsors.

The former Lib Dem minister Norman Baker has urged the Labour-dominated Public Accounts Committee to undertake a review of all royal finances, including the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster which supply the King and Prince William with much of their private riches.

Even the festive season did not provide Charles with the universal acclaim one might have expected.

While his Christmas Day message of peace and reconciliation was widely praised by church and political leaders, the online reaction was decidedly mixed.

‘The Defender of Faith is as woke as his Church,’ posted one correspondent.

Another wrote: ‘Just a load of **** spewed by an individual who knows absolutely nothing about what hard-working, tax-paying citizens go through 52 weeks of the year.’

Others were critical of the King dwelling on diversity.

‘How on earth can someone who lives in the lap of luxury at the expense of others, honestly deliver a speech telling everyone to celebrate the importation of those whose way of life is utterly incompatible with British values,’ wrote a viewer online.

Some were even more blunt.

‘Worst speech ever. Totally out of touch,’ claimed one.

‘No wonder the Queen held on as long as she did. Charlie doesn’t represent British people in any way,’ said another.

Other comments included: ‘Get William on the throne,’ and ‘Must be nice living in a safe bubble protected from the reality of life and looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses while listening to [Keir] Starmer and his cronies knowing no matter what mess they make, it won’t affect you.’

It would be tempting to dismiss such disaffection as the ranting of a minority, but the numbers voicing such views were not insignificant.

More sobering for courtiers was the fact that those finding fault with the King were not from the agitprop Left but were of the Christian and monarchy-supporting Right.

Recent polls show that Britons still favour retaining the monarchy but, at 51 per cent, that majority is now wafer-thin.

With critics on the Right and the Left, it would not take much for that narrow majority in favour to become a narrow majority against.

For now, at least, 2026 begins on a positive note, thanks to the King’s good news that his cancer treatment will be reduced in the new year.

While he is not in remission, it means that he no longer will need to continue with weekly sessions, although medical intervention will continue for the foreseeable future.

At the age of 77, this is a pivotal change for the King.

His treatment has sapped his energy at times, and he will be hoping that some of his pre-cancer vigour returns.

It will also free him up to do more of the things he likes.

Plans are underway which could see him flying more than 15,000 miles on foreign tours.

These include possible visits to the US for the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from British rule and to Antigua for the Commonwealth heads of government conference in the autumn.

Fifty years ago, the late Queen Elizabeth made a significant state visit celebrating the US’s bicentenary, famously touching the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, standing on the balcony in Boston where the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and dancing with a flat-footed President Gerald Ford at the White House.

For her son, however, visiting Donald Trump’s Washington may require more than kingly diplomacy.

Setting foot on American soil will inevitably raise questions about whether he will see his wayward son, Prince Harry and his children, whom he has met only once before. 

He last saw his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet, during the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

In September, California-based Harry spent 54 minutes at Clarence House with his father – their first meeting in more than 18 months – after he had publicly expressed hopes of a reconciliation with his family in a TV interview.

But the encounter later descended into farce, with sources close to Harry perversely scorning those who leaked details of an apparently warm experience as being ‘intent on sabotaging any reconciliation between father and son’.

Against such a background some courtiers are privately sceptical of Harry’s calls for a rapprochement. Is it any wonder that the King’s handlers are uneasy?

‘Extending an invitation to meet his father will almost certainly be a media event,’ says a PR figure who has advised the royals.

‘But so too will any failure to invite him. It will be a story if Harry is there, and it will be a story if he isn’t. It’s quite a dilemma.’

These are not the only difficulties. Last month, it was revealed that Harry had appealed to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to have his taxpayer-funded armed security reinstated after losing a lengthy court battle with the Home Office.

In an interview, Harry said it was not safe to bring his family back to the country of his birth because he could not guarantee their safety. (This before he promptly spent time in war-torn Ukraine.)

But if his security status is changed, might that open up the possibility of him bringing his wife Meghan and their children over to the UK? And will he be bringing with him his shopping list of grievances, from the way Britain is run to the alleged racism of the Royal Family?

Harry remains a divisive figure. It was surely coincidence that his televised walk through the minefields of Angola last July took place on Queen Camilla’s birthday and his Invictus Games in Birmingham in 2027 will coincide with his stepmother’s 80th – something the King wants to be at the centre of attention including a service of thanksgiving at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

Inside the family, such distractions remain a serious hazard.

Even if Charles is minded to reconcile with Harry what about William? The dynamic between the estranged brothers could ignite at any point, whether over titles, tours or even the future direction of the monarchy. These then are vexing issues for a King who dislikes confrontation.

So what other milestones – and potential pitfalls – are in store? Well, there will be anniversaries aplenty, some such as the April centenary of Queen Elizabeth’s birth and the 90th birthday of royal favourite Princess

Alexandra will be celebrated. Others will not.

2026 will mark 90 years since the abdication of King Edward VIII and 45 years since the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

For the King, both are uncomfortable echoes from history and neither are opportunities for popular celebration.

An exhibition to mark Queen Elizabeth’s changing fashions, however, which will chronicle his mother’s long life through the clothes she wore in public and in private, including her 1947 wedding dress made by couturier Sir Norman Hartwell, is bound to be hugely popular.

Separately, a national memorial for the late Queen is being planned for St James’s Park in central London, although there is no date yet set for it to be completed.

Handling his mother’s legacy is both a privilege and a burden for the King. It is in his gift to choose the writer to compile the Queen’s official biography.

But any official account of the late Queen, however discreet the historian, will necessarily have to feature the breakdown of the marriages of her three elder children and in particular that of Charles and Diana and its effect on national life.

‘After less than four years on the throne, he is unlikely to wish to have the whole sorry saga of his unhappy first marriage dragged up for public consumption all over again,’ says a friend of the King.

‘Better to leave it in the pending tray for a little bit longer.’

Better indeed perhaps to leave it for his son William to sort out.

In years to come historians will pore over another anniversary this year – Prince George’s 13th birthday. But while a personal landmark for the young prince it is also a waypoint on his development as a future king.

In practical terms it means him starting a new school. Where he goes to will provide an intriguing insight into the Prince and Princess of Wales’s decisions about how they want to educate their three children.

So far they have resisted royal tradition and kept them together in schools. That must now change.

Eton College, which both princes William and Harry attended, is the favourite.

William enjoyed his time at the all-boys’ school, and also felt protected there in the aftermath of the death of his mother Princess Diana. Eton is also close to the Wales’ family home, Forest Lodge on the Windsor estate. William, too, will embark on another step towards the crown too.

In the spring he and Catherine will grant their first royal warrants to favoured traders and suppliers. Kate in fact will be the first Princess of Wales to award a warrant for 116 years, not even Princess Diana had the opportunity to do so.

Towards the end of last year there was considerable nervousness at Buckingham Palace over veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby’s disdainful look at royal wealth.

But his programmes, perhaps because of their timing so close to Christmas, had little impact.

A parliamentary investigation into the cosy arrangements of royal properties promises to be somewhat different. The focus, at least to start with, seems certain to be the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh’s occupancy of 120-room mansion Bagshot Park which, in sheer size, dwarfs Andrew’s Royal Lodge.

But unlike Andrew, Edward and Sophie are working royals and criticism has been muted.

Then, late last year, it emerged that they were living there under the terms of a peppercorn rent.

I understand that an idea being floated among informal advisers is that they leave Bagshot, where they have lived for 26 years, and move into Kensington Palace.

The 21-room Apartment 1 – next door to William and Kate’s London residence – has been empty since it was vacated by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in 2019.

Originally it was earmarked as a family home for Harry and Meghan and there was later talk that it might be used by William and Kate for official entertaining.

As one figure told me: ‘I have no idea if it will happen, but it could take the wind out of the sails of a Labour wrecking crew intent on another royal scalp.’ Which brings us to the former prince Andrew. Although there is no sign of an imminent departure from

Royal Lodge or the identity of his new home on the Sandringham estate, I am told moving plans are well advanced.

Courtiers will be hoping that now he is stripped of all royal privileges, he simply fades from public consciousness. But will he really?

Only this week he was back in the news in a row over the transparency of royal archives after the redacting of official papers from his time as a UK trade envoy.

Swapping addresses will not change the narrative around him. Who he sees and what he does will remain an issue for him as a commoner as much as when he was a royal prince.

At the same time, there may be more to emerge from the Jeffrey Epstein files and that could increase pressure on him to do the one thing he so far has steadfastly refused, and speak to the US authorities.

Andrew was by no means forgotten at Christmas; there were telephone calls from other members of the Royal Family, including his sister and brother.

Princess Anne, who is closest to Andrew, had suggested that she might accommodate her brother on her Gatcombe Park estate, which is not far from his daughter Beatrice’s Cotswold home, an option later ruled out.

The shadow of Andrew will loom over 2026 as much as he did in 2025. So, a happy new year? Only time will tell.