When Queen Elizabeth was admitted to hospital for a night in October 2021 for “preliminary investigations”, the first the public learned of her health concerns was a front page story in the Sun.

The monarch might have hoped not to cause a fuss, but the fact that royal reporters had been told she was advised to rest, but not that she was in hospital, led to feverish speculation over the true state of her health – and criticism of palace “secrecy”.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that the royal households took a markedly different approach on Wednesday, with twin announcements, just over an hour apart, that the Princess of Wales and King Charles were being treated for health concerns.

Catherine, 42, had been admitted to a private London hospital on Tuesday for planned abdominal surgery, Kensington Palace said in a statement, and was doing well. No further details of the princess’s “private medical information” were given, though the palace indicated there are no concerns over cancer.

Perhaps eager to avoid a second day of speculation over the state of the royal family’s health, that announcement was soon followed by another from the press team at Buckingham Palace. “In common with thousands of men each year,” the king was being treated for an enlarged prostate, it said, stressing that his condition, too, is benign. The king, 75, will have a “corrective procedure” next week.

While the king’s public engagements will be postponed “for a short period of recuperation”, the princess’s surgery is more debilitating. She will be in hospital for 10 to 14 days, and is not expected to be well enough to return to public engagements until after Easter.

In keeping with the couple’s attempt to be hands-on parents – at least by the standards of the royal family – the Prince of Wales, her husband, will also be stepping back from public duties for the period she is in hospital and immediately after her return home to be with their three young children.

They have also postponed any plans to travel internationally in the coming months.

During her pregnancies the princess suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, a form of extreme morning sickness, and was hospitalised in 2012 while pregnant with Prince George. She announced her second pregnancy in 2014 earlier than planned because she was having treatment for the condition.

It was “utterly rotten”, she told a podcast in 2020, adding: “I was really sick – I wasn’t eating the things I should be eating – but yet, the body was still able to take all the goodness from my body and to grow new life, which I think is fascinating.”

The public was kept well briefed when the Duke of Edinburgh was hospitalised several times in his later years. Prince Philip spent four weeks in hospital after heart surgery in March 2021; he died the following month.

Similarly, when Queen Camilla had surgery at a London hospital in 2007, reporters were made aware the then Duchess of Cornwall had a hysterectomy.