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What Really Happened When Jackie Kennedy Met Queen Elizabeth

If you have been watching The Crown , Netflix’s hit series about the life of Queen Elizabeth, you may have been surprised to see American royalty visit with British royalty, when Jackie and John F. Kennedy stopped by Buckingham Palace. Like much of the show, the story was based on real history.

In June 1961, just months after JFK started his presidential term, the Kennedys paid a visit to the Queen, bringing a signed portrait of the president in a silver Tiffany’s frame, with a message he had handwritten: “To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, with appreciation and the highest esteem, John F. Kennedy.” The Queen threw a banquet in their honor, which Prime Minister Harold Macmillan described in his diary as “very pleasant.” In a birthday note to the Queen, JFK himself remembered the festivities fondly. “May I also at the same time say how grateful my wife and I are for the cordial hospitality offered to us by your Majesty and Prince Philip during our visit to London last Monday,” he wrote. “We shall always cherish the memory of that delightful evening.”

While The Crown may have exaggerated the exchange, according to Jackie’s confidantes, Cecil Beaton and Gore Vidal, Jackie did have some criticisms of Queen Elizabeth following the actual 1961 meeting. Per The Telegraph , Beaton claimed that Kennedy “was unimpressed by the palace furnishings and by the Queen’s dress and hairstyle.” And, according to Reader’s Digest , Jackie supposedly told Vidal , “I think the queen resented me. Philip was nice, but nervous. One felt absolutely no relationship between them.”

According to The Telegraph, that wasn’t all. Vidal also claimed that after their meeting, Jackie described Elizabeth as “pretty heavy going.” When Vidal mentioned the comment to Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, years later, she is said to have retorted, “But that’s what she’s there for.” In The Crown , Jackie apologized for speaking unkindly about the Queen, blaming her loose lips on medication, but it’s unclear whether that happened in real life—or even if the Queen knew about Jackie’s disrespect. What history tells us, though, is that when Jackie was in London the following year, the Queen invited her to lunch and Jackie later told the press that she was “grateful” for the invitation and found the Queen “charming.” The friendship seemed to recover from the rumors. When JFK was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, Prince Philip attended the funeral. Later, Queen Elizabeth opened a memorial dedicated to JFK in England and Jackie and her children attended the ceremony.

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The True Story of How the Kennedys Met the Queen

What really happened the day the first couple came to Buckingham Palace.

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Here's what really went down.

According to America's Queen , a biography of Jackie Kennedy by Sarah Bradford, there was some initial hesitation in inviting Jackie's sister Princess Lee Radziwill and her brother-in-law Polish Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł to the event.

Traditionally, divorcées were not invited to State Dinners at Buckingham Palace—Stan was Lee's second husband; Lee was Stan's third wife—but the royals eventually relented and extended an invitation to Jackie's relatives. After all, this was only a banquet and not an official State Dinner.

But the Queen "had her revenge," at least according to Jackie's friend, writer Gore Vidal: Princess Margaret and Princess Marina, two attendees Jackie had specifically requested, were not invited to the party.

Jackie apparently found the guest list less than scintillating. "No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture they could find," she reportedly told Vidal. Jackie also told him that while Prince Philip was "nice but nervous," the Queen was "pretty heavy-going."

Per Hello Goodbye , a chronicle of "remarkable meetings" by Craig Brown, "When Vidal repeats this to Princess Margaret some years later, the Princess loyally explains, 'But that's what she's there for .'"

Perhaps these rumors of name-calling and drama-filled dinners are just that: rumors. After all, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan described the evening in his diary as "very pleasant." That exact phrase was also used by Kennedy's chief of protocol, Angier Biddle Duke, when he spoke about the night in a 1964 interview. "It was a delightful evening," he said , "very pleasant, very charming, very attractive evening! I think everybody enjoyed it very much."

And the president himself wrote kindly of the evening in a birthday note to the Queen. "May I also at the same time say how grateful my wife and I are for the cordial hospitality offered to us by your Majesty and Prince Philip during our visit to London last Monday," he said . "We shall always cherish the memory of that delightful evening."

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Unfortunately, Kennedy never made it back to Buckingham Palace. He was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963. Prince Philip attended the funeral .

In the years following JFK's death, the British government established the Kennedy Memorial Trust , which operates in two parts: a physical memorial in Runnymede, England (the site of the sealing of the Magna Carta) and a scholarship for British post-graduates attending either Harvard or MIT.

“The unprecedented intensity of that wave of grief, mixed with something akin to despair, which swept over our people at the news of President Kennedy’s assassination, was a measure of the extent to which we recognized what he had already accomplished, and of the high hopes that rode with him in a future that was not to be," Queen Elizabeth said at the dedication of the Runnymede site.

Jackie attended that ceremony with her brothers-in-law Bobby and Ted Kennedy and her children, Caroline, then 7, and John, then 4. As they stood beside the memorial, John John held his mother's hand on one side and Prince Philip's on the other.

The modest gift Kennedy presented to the Queen during his first and only meeting, a signed picture in a silver Tiffany's frame, was displayed publicly for the first time at Buckingham Palace over the summer.

As the digital director for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers culture, entertainment, and a range of other subjects 

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President Kennedy's Trip to Europe, May 30-June 5, 1961

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About Media

This segment features archival footage covering highlights of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Europe. Included are scenes of President and Mrs. Kennedy in Paris, France; President Kennedy meeting over two days with the Soviet Union's Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria; and President Kennedy and meeting British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, in London, England. The footage is narrated by Kennedy Library Director Tom Putnam.  This video is provided courtesy of Comcast Video Productions & Services Archival footage citation:  USG:1i “The Task Begun: President Kennedy in Europe” 1961: 30 May-5 June Presented by: United States Information Service (USIS). 

John F. Kennedy

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