King Charles sought to contact Ranulph Fiennes, friend says

King Charles tried to contact explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes after a friend raised concerns about his health and isolation, according to an account by the friend, Anton Bowring. Bowring said the King’s equerry later asked for Fiennes’s wife’s phone number so the monarch could express his concern and offer help. The reports do not establish whether the King ultimately spoke or corresponded with Fiennes. Bowring said he wrote to the King’s private secretary in February 2025, describing Fiennes as being in a very poor state and saying friends were worried. He said the King’s equerry, William Thornton, subsequently told him Charles wanted to write to Fiennes, his wife Louise Millington-Cotes and their daughter, Elizabeth. Thornton asked how the King could contact Fiennes and requested Millington-Cotes’s number, Bowring said. According to Bowring’s account as reported, Millington-Cotes objected to her contact details being shared and said the contact was causing her husband distress. She reportedly threatened legal or police action if Bowring continued, and the King was not put in touch with Fiennes.