What does King Charles do and how has cancer changed his duties?

The King has temporarily stepped back from his public duties while he is treated for cancer.

Buckingham Palace has not said what type of cancer the 75-year-old has, but confirmed that it was not prostate cancer.

The King was recently treated for prostate enlargement.

After his diagnosis was made public, Buckingham Palace said a number of the King's public engagements would be rearranged or postponed.

"His majesty would like to apologise to all those who may be disappointed or inconvenienced as a consequence," it added.

Throughout his treatment, the King has continued to hold private meetings as head of state and complete official paperwork.

His regular weekly meetings with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have also continued - although, not all have been in person.

Buckingham Palace confirmed Queen Camilla would hand out the traditional "Maundy money" on the King's behalf on Thursday, 28 March, in a ceremony at Worcester Cathedral.

The King and Queen will both attend an Easter Sunday service at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

However, the Prince and Princess of Wales are not expected to attend, as Catherine continues with her own cancer treatment.

While the King is recovering, the Queen is continuing to attend public engagements.

If it became the case that the King was not able to carry out his official duties for a temporary period, two or more members of the Royal Family would be appointed as Counsellors of State, to act in his place.

They could include the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Edinburgh.

The King is the UK head of state, but his powers are largely symbolic and ceremonial. He remains politically neutral.

He receives daily dispatches from the government in a red leather box, including briefings ahead of important meetings, or documents needing his signature.

The prime minister normally meets the King on a Wednesday at Buckingham Palace.

These meetings are completely private, and no official records are kept of what is said.

The King also has a number of official parliamentary roles:

The monarch also leads the annual Remembrance event in November at the Cenotaph in London.

The King hosts visiting heads of state, and regularly meets foreign ambassadors and high commissioners.

In the first year of his reign, Charles visited a number of countries, including Germany, France and Kenya.

Charles is also head of the Commonwealth, an association of 56 independent countries spanning 2.5 billion people.

He is head of state for 14 of these, known as the Commonwealth realms, as well as the Crown dependencies - the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

The Queen undertakes her own public engagements on behalf of the 90 charities she supports.

The order of succession sets out which member of the Royal Family takes over as monarch when the existing one dies or abdicates. First in line - the heir to the throne - is the monarch's eldest child.

Sons no longer take precedence over their older sisters.

King Charles's heir is his elder son, the Prince of Wales.

William's eldest child Prince George is second-in-line to the throne, and his daughter Princess Charlotte is third. Her younger brother Prince Louis is fourth and Prince Harry is fifth.

The Royal Family receives an annual payment from the taxpayer, known as the Sovereign Grant, which is used to pay for official expenses, such as the upkeep of properties and staff costs.

The amount is based on a proportion of the profits of the Crown Estate, a £16.5bn property business owned by the monarch but run independently.

The Sovereign Grant is worth £86.3m for 2023-2024, as it was in 2021-2022 and 2022-23, although the Royal Family's total spending was more, with the difference covered by reserves.

To keep the annual payment at the same level of £86.3m in 2024-2025, the grant will be a smaller percentage of Crown Estate profits, which have been boosted by six new offshore wind farms.

However, if Crown Estate profits continue to grow as predicted, even under the reduced formula, the amount given to the Royal Family is expected to increase substantially in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027.

The King also receives money from a private estate called the Duchy of Lancaster, which is passed down from monarch to monarch. It covers more than 18,000 hectares of land, including property in central London. Worth £654m, it generates about £20m a year in profits.

The Duke of Cornwall (currently William, Prince of Wales) benefits from the Duchy of Cornwall, which mainly owns land in the south-west of England. Worth £1bn, it generated a net surplus of £24m in 2022-23.

The King and William receive the profits from the duchies personally, and can spend the money as they wish. Both voluntarily pay income tax on the proceeds.

Some Royal Family members have private art, jewellery and stamp collections which they can sell or use to generate income as they wish.

Charles became King on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022.

On 6 May 2023, Charles and his wife Camilla were crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in front of more than 2,000 guests, including global politicians, fellow kings and queens, religious leaders, celebrities and community champions.

During the Westminster Abbey ceremony, the King was anointed with "holy oil", and received the orb and sceptre, symbols of royalty.

Crowds lined the streets of central London to watch the King and Queen return to Buckingham Palace in a mile-long procession.

Two months later, the King was presented with the Scottish crown jewels, in a special service of thanksgiving at St Giles' Cathedral, in Edinburgh.

The King and Queen's official residence, Buckingham Palace, is undergoing a 10-year £369m refurbishment,. They split their time between Clarence House in London and Highgrove in Gloucestershire.

Other Royal residences include Windsor Castle, Sandringham, in Norfolk, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, in Edinburgh, and Balmoral Castle, in Aberdeenshire.

In August 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales moved from Kensington Palace in west London to live in Adelaide Cottage, on the Windsor Estate.

In early 2023, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, which they had used as their UK base after moving to the US.

A YouGov opinion poll of more than 2,000 adults in Britain ahead of the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's death suggested a sharp generational divide.

Overall, 62% wanted to keep the monarchy, with 26% backing an elected head of state - up from 17% a decade earlier.

But while 80% of the over-65s supported the monarchy, only 37% of 18 to 24-year-olds agreed.

There was also less support for the royals in Scotland or Wales than in England, where London had higher levels of people against the monarchy than anywhere else in the country.

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