kennedys visit buckingham palace

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Fact checking ‘The Crown’: Jackie Kennedy vs. Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace

In the early summer of 1961, Queen Elizabeth sits down on a couch at a country castle to share a TV dinner with her mother.

On the plates: macaroni and cheese. On the TV: Jackie Kennedy dazzling Paris.

“She’s so young,” the queen mother says. “I always thought she was the same age as you.”

The queen replies, “She is.”

The moment is striking.

In a few days, Jackie Kennedy will leave France and arrive with her husband at Buckingham Palace for dinner. Already, the queen is slowly boiling over with jealousy. Her mother simply cannot stop talking about Jackie.

The moment is also not real.

It comes at the beginning of episode 8 of the second season of the hit Netflix show “The Crown,” which depicts the life of Queen Elizabeth II after she takes the throne following the early death of her father, King George.

The show follows the queen’s life as she navigates family troubles and weighty world events. As a historical document, it’s certainly not a dissertation. The spirit is there, even if the macaroni and cheese is made up. (Though it did look rather delicious.)

In the arc of the show, the Kennedys’ visit to Buckingham Palace comes at the climax of the season, using the visit — and all its tension — to depict a queen coming to accept her personal limitations (dowdy, unsexy, not well read) but also firmly grasping the crown’s power.

Britain did indeed go positively mad for Jackie when she arrived. The queen wasn’t pleased.

“The queen’s resentment was real,” Kitty Kelley wrote in “The Royals.”

The show depicts that displeasure in the on-screen queen’s reaction to the Kennedys’ arrival at Buckingham Palace, when her staff of normally stiff butlers and even Prince Phillip jockey to see the first lady emerging from the motorcade.

“It’s mad hysteria,” the on-screen queen says. “Extraordinary behavior.”

“C’mon,” her husband says. “It’s like royalty.”

“Very funny,” the on-screen queen says, not having much fun.

In reality, according to news accounts and biographies of Jackie and Queen Elizabeth, there was a real tension to the visit beyond beauty and star power, a behind-the-scenes, passive-aggressive catfight left out of the episode.

Jackie, in reality, insisted on inviting to the dinner her sister and brother-in-law, a Polish prince who had been divorced twice. One divorce back then was too many for the queen and the monarchy. The queen objected. The first lady objected to the objection.

A tense negotiation among diplomats ended favorably for Jackie — until she saw the full guest list. Left off the queen’s list was her own more fashionable and risqué sister, Princess Margaret, and their aunt Princess Marina. The queen knew the first lady wanted to be photographed with them.

“No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture they could find,” Jackie reportedly told her friend Gore Vidal, a writer with loose lips. Zing!

JFK’s last birthday: Gifts, champagne and wandering hands on the presidential yacht

In the episode, the first lady is also overheard saying really, really mean things about the queen. Without spoiling the entirety of insults for those who haven’t yet made it to episode 8, here is but one word Jackie used to describe her host: “Unremarkable.” Zing zing!

Jackie wasn’t a fan in reality either.

“The queen was pretty heavy-going,” she told Vidal, according to numerous Jackie biographies. “Phillip was nice, but nervous. One felt absolutely no relationship between them.”

The show and reality do converge on several topics.

For one thing, the meal was not a state dinner. The Brits were sensitive about upstaging the French, who had just fallen all over themselves to welcome the Kennedys. And after all, the president had been in office only seven months. A state dinner could come later.

It never did.

Toward the end of the episode, the queen is out in the forest helping clear wood. A man comes racing out in a Land Rover*, honking the horn.

“What is it?” she asks.

The man says, “You’re needed back at the house.”

Queen Elizabeth jumps into the Land Rover and heads in.

The music turns grim.

She finds her staff huddled around a TV.

“People screamed and laid down on the ground,” the newscaster says, “as shots were heard …”

* This post originally said a man came racing out in a Jeep. It was a Land Rover.

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What Really Happened When Jackie Kennedy Met Queen Elizabeth

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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 day the Kennedys came to Buckingham Palace

The Queen’s historic reign has seen many moments and meetings that have made history. During her seventy year rule, she has seen fourteen Presidents of the United States and the day she entertained one of them at Buckingham Palace has become a milestone in the story of Elizabeth II.

On June 5th 1961, The Queen and Prince Philip welcomed President John F Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to dinner. The two most famous couples in the world met at Buckingham Palace with the world’s media watching.

Jacqueline Kennedy was the toast of Europe at the time. As she whizzed around the continent, just months after her husband’s inauguration, her style and charm won her a legion of fans. Just days before her date at Buckingham Palace, JFK had famously remarked that ”I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.”

The dinner date would prove to be one of the most talked about of The Queen’s reign and not just because it was brought to life, with some dramatic licence, by The Crown years later. Even before the Kennedys arrived at the Palace there had been controversy as Mrs Kennedy wanted her sister, Princess Lee Radziwell, at the meal along with her husband, Prince Stanislaw Radziwill. Both had been divorced, unacceptable at court at the time, but Jackie won the day. However, she would later complain that The Queen had dropped Princess Margaret and Princess Marina from the guest list, leaving it less than interesting to her.

This was no State Banquet but rather a formal gathering to honour the new US President and First Lady. There is every indication that a full State Visit by JFK and Jackie would follow. President Kennedy’s assassination, in November 1963, meant it never happened. The Queen would go on to welcome his widow to Runnymede as they unveiled a memorial to the President.

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'The Crown': Did Jackie Kennedy really badmouth the Queen?

Netflix’s glossy royal family drama “The Crown,” now in its second season, turns its viewers into amateur historians. (Who among us has not scurried off to Google in the middle of an episode, itching for factoids about the Suez Crisis and the Profumo affair ?) The hit series takes many liberties with the historical record, of course — but NBC News is here to help you separate fact from fiction.

Let’s move on to Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy, the queen of Camelot. (Fact check: That's not a real title.) In the second season of “The Crown,” the first lady (Jodi Balfour) pays a visit to Buckingham Palace with her husband, President John F. Kennedy (Michael C. Hall). That really happened . What’s far less clear is whether a feud between Jackie and Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) touched off a small-scale diplomatic tiff.

Did the two regal women really butt heads? Let’s go to the record.

Jackie didn’t really say those nasty things about Elizabeth, did she?

Well, sort of. On “The Crown,” Jackie Kennedy trashes the queen as “incurious, unintelligent and unremarkable” and dismisses Buckingham Palace as “second-rate, dilapidated and sad.” Ouch! That’s quite a Yelp review. (She also slams the palace as a “tired institution without a place in the modern world,” in case we didn’t get the message.)

In real life, “there is some evidence that Jacqueline Kennedy was critical of Buckingham Palace and the Queen,” said Carolyn Harris, a historian and author of “Raising Royalty: 1000 Years of Royal Parenting.” She explained: The legendary photographer Cecil Beaton “claimed that Jackie was unimpressed with the palace furnishings and the Queen’s comparatively old-fashioned wardrobe and hairstyle” during the 1961 visit.

OK, so that’s not exactly a compliment. But it appears the writers of the eighth episode, “Dear Mrs. Kennedy,” turned up the heat on Jackie’s insults, giving them a more cutting edge for dramatic effect. And that leads us to our next question …

Did an Elizabeth-Jackie rivalry really shape foreign policy?

Almost definitely not. On “The Crown,” Elizabeth is jealous of the American first lady, who wows world leaders with her charm, elegance and command of the French language . And so Foy’s Elizabeth, eager to even the scales with Jackie, travels to the commonwealth nation of Ghana to prove that she, too, is a major player on the world stage. It’s a good conceit — if only it were true.

“There is no evidence that the Queen traveled to Ghana in the aftermath of a rivalry” with Jackie O., Harris said. “The Queen has … taken her role as Head of the Commonwealth seriously and undertaken Commonwealth tours.” In other words: Her Majesty did not go on a high-stakes diplomatic odyssey just to get back at the first lady.

The Queen's stunning foxtrot with President Nkrumah of Ghana in 1961. A dance floor worth revisiting. pic.twitter.com/fNJcPxso8G — The Crown (@TheCrownNetflix) December 20, 2017

But that visit to Ghana went pretty well, right?

That seems to be the case.

“There were security concerns regarding the Queen’s visit to Ghana, but the tour was a success,” said Harris. The high-point of “Dear Mrs. Kennedy” was inspired by an indelible real-life moment: Elizabeth danced with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah at a banquet thrown in her honor.

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When Queen Elizabeth Met Jackie Kennedy: The True Story of 'The Crown' 's Big Season 2 Moment

The ultra-glam meeting wasn't without a little drama! 

They were America's closest thing to royalty — and in 1961, President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy traveled across the pond for an extraordinary meeting with the world's ultimate royals: Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip .

The Buckingham Palace visit is the subject of an upcoming season 2 episode of the Golden Globe-winning drama The Crown, which returns to Netflix December 8. The episode will feature guest stars Michael C. Hall as JFK and Jodi Balfour as Jackie, alongside Claire Foy's Elizabeth and Matt Smith's Philip.

For the glamorous real-life meeting, Jackie looked every inch the princess in a Chez Ninon ice blue silk shantung evening dress and white gloves alongside a tuxedoed JFK.

The Queen , decked out in diamonds and sapphires, wore white gloves and a Hartnell royal blue tulle ballgown as she and Prince Philip , also in black-tie attire, welcomed their American guests to Buckingham Palace for a lavish banquet in their honor.

The evening was also not without its share of drama. Special allowance had to be made for Jackie's sister and brother-in-law, Princess Lee Radziwill and Prince Stanislas Radziwill to attend the dinner. Although Lee had married into the Polish royal family (hence the regal titles), she and her husband were on their second and third marriages, respectively, and divorcées were traditionally not invited to state dinners at Buckingham Palace at that time. (The dinner was not considered an official state visit; that was expected to follow, but JFK's assassination two years later in 1963 meant that it never took place.)

According to the Jackie Kennedy biography America's Queen by Sarah Bradford, Queen Elizabeth reluctantly waived her rule about divorce for the occasion, but "retaliated" by excluding Jackie's requested attendees, Princess Margaret and Princess Marina, from the guest list.

"The Queen had her revenge," Jackie joked to writer and friend Gore Vidal, according to the book. "No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture they could find."

Guest list drama aside, Kennedy White House aide Angier Biddle Duke described the evening as "very pleasant, very charming, very attractive!" in a 1964 interview .

Duke recalled how JFK and Jackie ascended the palace's grand staircase to greet the Queen and Prince Philip , who then led the group to "a small room" where they enjoyed glasses of champagne before dinner.

Shortly thereafter, "a door opened and there in a long, rather narrow reception room, were the dinner guests.

"Instead of having a receiving line, the Queen took the President, and Prince Philip took Mrs. Kennedy around the room," Duke recalled. "The guests were lined up in a semicircle, probably in order of precedence. The Queen introduced the President to each one of them individually and they shook hands.

"This was to me, a very delightful and charming and most courteous way of doing things," Duke said. "It was a delightful evening … I think everybody enjoyed it very much."

After dinner, the Queen took the First Lady into the art gallery, where they admired paintings that were hung "rather haphazardly" and "without regard to school, nationality, era, date or anything," Duke remarked.

The president didn't arrive empty-handed, presenting Queen Elizabeth with a small token of his gratitude: a signed portrait in a silver frame from Tiffany & Co.

The portrait, which JFK signed, "To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, with appreciation and highest esteem, John F. Kennedy," is currently on display for the first time at the annual Buckingham Palace summer exhibition.

If Kennedy's gift seems modest, it's with good reason. "Because Kennedy came to dinner and not on a state visit, that would be the level of gift that would have been considered appropriate," Sally Goodsir, curator of the new exhibit and assistant curator of decorative arts at the Royal Collection, recently told PEOPLE.

WATCH: What Really Happened the Day JFK Jr. Met Princess Diana — and What He Said About Her After

Though the dinner went smoothly, another recent meeting with a world leader was weighing heavily on JFK's mind that evening, according to former British ambassador David Ormsby Gore.

A 1965 interview with Ormsby Gore — one of JFK's closest friends, who was later romantically linked to Jackie following the President's assassination — sheds light on Kennedy's mindset during the dinner, which came on the heels of his Vienna summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Ormsby Gore, also known as Lord Harlech, said the meeting was "most disagreeable," with Khrushchev trying to "browbeat" and "frighten" the young president.

"In London [President Kennedy] was mainly worried as to how he was to put this to the American people and that night, at dinner at Buckingham Palace — the Queen gave a dinner for him — he was very concerned about preparing for his television broadcast as soon as he got back," recalled Ormsby Gore. "He thought it right that the American people should be told immediately what the real position was between the Soviet Union and the United States."

The Kennedys and their entourage left for the U.S. late that night. Though JFK would never meet the Queen again, he followed up his visit with a thank-you note .

"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 Phillip during our visit to London last Monday," he wrote. "We shall always cherish the memory of that delightful evening."

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Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II with President John F. Kennedy and Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy

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PX96-33:17  05 June 1961

(L-R): Prince Phillip, Jacqueline Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II, and President John F. Kennedy at Buckingham Palace in London, UK

Please credit: "Photograph in the collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston"

A look back at the Queen meeting the Kennedys ahead of season two of The Crown

The kennedys paid an historic visit to buckingham palace in 1961.

It's one of the most iconic moments in royal history, which is set to be depicted in season two of The Crown . With the period drama returning to Netflix on Friday, we decided to take a look back at the true story behind the Queen 's meeting with the Kennedys at Buckingham Palace in 1961. President John F Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline (aka Jackie) dazzled British crowds with their charm and sophistication, and made quite an impression as guests of honour at a lavish State Banquet, hosted by the monarch and her husband Prince Philip.

The Kennedys were guests of honour at a lavish State Banquet in 1961

GALLERY: Jackie Kennedy's childhood home is up for sale for £38million

The Queen looked glamourous as ever in a Hartnell royal blue tulle ballgown, which was styled further with white satin gloves and dazzling jewellery encrusted with diamonds and sapphires. Jackie, whose popularity matched the Queen's, was preened to perfection in a Chez Ninon ice blue silk evening gown and gloves. It was reported that special allowance was made for Jackie's sister and brother-in-law, Princess Lee Radziwill and Prince Stanislas Radziwill, to attend the dinner. Traditionally, divorcées were not invited to State Dinners at Buckingham Palace - both Lee and her husband were on their second and third marriages - despite being a part of the Polish royal family.

EXCLUSIVE: The Crown's Claire Foy gives her royal seal of approval to successor Olivia Colman

During the visit to Buckingham Palace, JFK presented the Queen with a photo of himself in a silver Tiffany & Co. frame and signed it: "To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, with appreciation and highest esteem, John F. Kennedy." In a birthday note to the Queen, the president later thanked her for her hospitality during their visit. "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."

The Crown: We spent the day at filming location Audley End House

President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie will be played by Michael C. Hall and Jodi Balfour in The Crown. The Crown tells the inside story of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, as the fragile social order established after the Second World War breaks apart. The series will feature the historic visit, which was considered difficult because divorcees were not invited to state dinners, focusing on the Queen's relationship with Jackie. The two women met again alone nine months later, when Jackie confided to the Queen that she found being on public view "exhausting".

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JFK and Jackie insulted Queen Elizabeth at royal dinner

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and President John F Kennedy. Getty

How accurate is The Crown's depiction of the 1961 meeting of the Kennedys and Queen Elizabeth II?

In June 1961, President John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie visited Buckingham Palace. The visit, which occurred only a few months after Kennedy took office, is featured in a second season episode of the Netflix series The Crown.

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In the episode, Queen Elizabeth finds out that weeks after their meeting, the First Lady told dinner guests that the queen was “a middle-aged woman so incurious, unintelligent and unremarkable that Britain’s new reduced place in the world was not a surprise but an inevitability” and calls Buckingham Palace “second-rate, dilapidated and sad, like a neglected provincial hotel.”

In truth, the Kennedys did have criticisms of Queen Elizabeth following their meeting. According to The Telegraph , Cecil Beaton claimed that Kennedy “was unimpressed by the palace furnishings and by the Queen’s dress and hairstyle.” Gore Vidal claimed that Jackie described the queen as “pretty heavy going.”

Another drama related to the meeting that is not referenced in "The Crown" involved the guest list. According to the Reader’s Digest : “Traditionally, divorcées are not invited, so the queen has been reluctant to welcome Jackie’s sister Princess Lee Radziwill, who is on her second marriage, or her husband, Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, who is on his third. Under pressure, she relents, but, by way of retaliation, singularly fails to invite Princess Margaret or Princess Marina, both of whose names Jackie has put forward. Jackie’s old paranoia returns: She sees it as a plot to do her down. /The queen had her revenge,’ she confides to Gore Vidal. ‘No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture they could find.’

One account of the meeting does suggest a somewhat warm post-dinner exchange between Jackie and the queen, which mirrors a moment of bonding between the two women depicted on The Crown . Jackie told Elizabeth how tiring it was to be on display as a public figure. To which the queen reportedly responded: “One gets crafty after a while and learns how to save oneself.”

However, Jackie supposedly later told Vidal: “I think the queen resented me. Philip was nice but nervous. One felt absolutely no relationship between them.”

Following up after the dinner, JFK sent a birthday message 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 wrote. “We shall always cherish the memory of that delightful evening.”

Unlike the depiction in "The Crown," there are no reports that Jackie’s criticisms got back to the Queen, and the year following the dinner, Jackie visited Elizabeth in lower-profile circumstances without her husband when the monarch invited her to lunch on March 28, 1962. Jackie told the press afterward: “I don’t think I should say anything about it except how grateful I am and how charming she was.”

"The Crown" creator Peter Morgan has not specified what knowledge he bases his plot twists on, but he said: “I think there’s room to creatively imagine, based on the information we have about her.”

Two years after JFK’s assassination, Queen Elizabeth opened a U.K. memorial for Kennedy at Runnymede in Berkshire, the site of the sealing of the Magna Carta . The dedication was attended by Jackie, and the Kennedy children Caroline and John. During the dedication, Elizabeth gave a speech saying: “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.”

* This article first appeared on IrishCentral  / Originally published on BHT in 2019.

Related: Queen Elizabeth II

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Inside Queen Elizabeth’s “Awkward” Evening With John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy

By David Charter

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Jackie Kennedy, three years younger than thirty-five year old Queen Elizabeth II but an epoch ahead in style, arrived in London in triumph from Paris where she was fêted as much for her flawless French as for her chic wardrobe.

This was the first big overseas trip of John F Kennedy’s presidency and Europe was dazzled. The Crown would have us believe that Elizabeth seethed with envy of Jackie, not least because Prince Philip fawned over the more glamorous new darling of the world stage.

Rubbing salt into the royal wounds, the Netflix series has the Queen receiving reports of being cruelly dismissed as “incurious, unintelligent and unremarkable” by Jackie.

Their evening together and the gossip wasn’t that bad, but it was still the most awkward of any of the British monarch’s remarkable series of encounters with the 13 sitting US presidents she knew. 

JFK arrived in London shattered from a bruising two-day summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna and, ahead of his rendezvous with the Queen, unburdened himself to a close friend, the British aristocrat David Ormsby-Gore, and to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan during several hours of private talks. Kennedy relied on both Brits as invaluable confidants throughout his presidency. 

Queen Elizabeth and Jacqueline Kennedy.

However, at the table that night Elizabeth struggled to get to know a commander in chief who preferred the counsel of men—there were no women in his cabinet nor among the close circle of buddies he turned to for support. 

The strains of that first dinner were quickly forgotten and Elizabeth II would welcome Jackie on future occasions—although there would never, tragically, be time for the state visit envisaged for her husband. Nor did the relationship between the countries suffer. To a greater extent than any other American president of her reign, Kennedy was a lifelong Anglophile who respected Britain’s indomitable resistance to fascism, its democratic traditions, and its influential, if waning, global role. While Jackie upstaged Elizabeth in the pages of Vogue and was dubbed “America’s Queen” by her biographer, JFK leaned heavily on British advice throughout his presidency—sometimes to the frustration of his own cabinet members—and modernized the Special Relationship to ensure that both countries remained firm allies ready for the challenges of the nuclear age.

There was tremendous excitement in London at the arrival of the American First Couple on June 4, 1961. Half a million people lined the streets to see the Kennedys drive into the capital, and the next day crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of them at Westminster Cathedral for the christening of Jackie’s niece, Anna Christina Radziwill , the daughter of her sister, Lee, who was married to the Polish prince Stanislaw Albrecht “Stas” Radziwill. That evening, 2,500 swarmed Buckingham Palace, shepherded by mounted police, for the arrival of the presidential Rolls-Royce. Many stayed for two and a half hours to see them depart.

Two of Jackie’s confidantes recorded some catty gossip about the Queen, fueled by a clash of traditional British and modern American sensibilities which made for a strained atmosphere even before the guests arrived. On the face of it, the Kennedys were receiving a rare compliment— no US president had dined at Buckingham Palace since the state banquet for Woodrow Wilson in 1918. However, in the still-hidebound world of early 1960s Britain, there controversy behind the scenes over the guest list.

Asked by the palace whom she would like invited, Jackie asked for Princess Margaret, while her husband wanted to see Princess Marina, who was the Duchess of Kent and the Queen’s aunt. Margaret was notoriously more fun at parties than her elder sister, while Marina, the daughter of a grand duchess of Russia and a prince of Greece and Denmark, was such a trendsetter that she had a color named after her— Marina blue. Jackie also wanted her sister and her brother-in-law to attend, but Lee was on her second marriage and Stas his third—and royal protocol dictated that divorce was a disqualifier when it came to dinner guests.

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‘Royal Audience’ by David Charter

Back and forth the diplomats went as the palace objected to Jackie’s guests and Jackie objected to the objection. According to Gore Vidal’s account of what he was told by Jackie, it was the president who made the final ultimatum, telling the palace “not to bother about us, we’re here unofficially.” Alarm bells rang in the British government, which was extremely keen for Kennedy to receive the royal treatment, so the palace relented on the Radziwills—although the final guest list for the fifty-seat dinner came as a nasty surprise to the First Lady. There was no place for the two royals the Kennedys most wanted to meet.

“The queen had her revenge. . . . No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture that they could find,” Jackie told Vidal. Although likely embellished by the great American storyteller, Jackie’s displeasure was evident. Vidal recorded Jackie saying: “I think the queen resented me. Philip was nice, but nervous. One felt absolutely no relationship between them. The queen was human only once.”

This was when Elizabeth II asked about the Kennedys’ recent state visit to Canada and the First Lady shared feelings of exasperation about the trials of being on public view at all hours.

“The queen looked rather conspiratorial and said: ‘One gets crafty after a while and learns how to save oneself.’” After dinner, the Queen asked, “You like pictures?” and led Jackie down a long gallery, stopping at a Van Dyck painting to say, “That’s a good horse.” 

Jackie found Elizabeth “pretty heavy-going,” according to Vidal, a comment he repeated to Princess Margaret years later, who told him: “But that’s what she’s there for.”

By Maureen Ryan

By Bess Levin

By Kase Wickman

Vidal later relayed to Margaret how she was excluded as part of the power play and noted that she “nodded thoughtfully,” saying: “That could’ve been true—I know I rang my sister, furious at not being invited, and she said, ‘Ah, I thought since you were pregnant you wouldn’t want to bother!’ Too maddening!”

Macmillan, who was seated on Jackie’s left, recorded the evening in his diary as “very pleasant.” Jackie, who stayed on in London for a couple of days while her husband returned to Washington that night, clearly thought otherwise. Cecil Beaton, the society photographer, wrote in his diaries published in 1976 that she told him: “They were all tremendously kind and nice, but she was not impressed by the flowers, or the furnishings of the apartments at Buckingham Palace, or by the Queen’s dark-blue tulle dress and shoulder straps, or her flat hair.” 

The official photograph of the two couples that evening shows the men in black tie, as was required for an “informal” royal dinner, and Jackie in an ice blue sleeveless shantung silk evening dress with a boat neckline, from New York boutique Chez Ninon, looking a whole generation more modern than her hostess. London’s Evening Standard declared: “Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people one thing they had always lacked— majesty.”

From ROYAL AUDIENCE: 70 Years, 13 Presidents - One Queen’s Special Relationship with America by David Charter, to be published on March 5, 2024, by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2024 by David Charter.

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Kennedy Dynasty

The Kennedys' Visit To Buckingham Palace: What Did "The Crown" Get Right And Wrong?

Alyson dives into the differences of the Kennedys’ visit to Buckingham Palace on the Netflix series “The Crown” and what actually happened on their visit in 1961.

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How Jackie Kennedy Ended Up Reporting on Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation

By Hayley Maitland

In the summer of 1961, seven months after her husband moved into the Oval Office, Jackie Kennedy joined JFK at Buckingham Palace for a dinner given by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip , floating through the gilded state rooms in an ice-blue Chez Ninon gown and elbow-length gloves. Eight years earlier, she had been one of the 40,000 Americans who visited London for the Queen’s coronation in her role as  The Washington Times-Herald ’s “Inquiring Camera Girl”—sending home regular dispatches about both the Mayfair society set and the patriotic fervor that swept through the city in the run-up to June 2, 1953.

Rather than a standard assignment from the paper, the trip had been proposed by her friend Aileen Bowdoin’s mother, who thought that a girls’ trip might cheer Aileen up following her recent divorce. Jackie had traveled around Europe for the first time with Aileen’s younger sister Helen in 1948, and jumped at the chance to do some on-the-ground reporting, promptly pitching and getting sign-off on the idea from her managing editor Sidney Epstein. On 22 May, she boarded the ritzy SS United States —the largest ocean liner ever constructed in America—just days after her boyfriend, Senator Kennedy, had seriously broached the subject of marriage for the first time. Two years before—having won  Vogue ’s prestigious Prix-de-Paris contest—the future First Lady had turned down the magazine’s offer of a job out of concern that she would never meet a suitable husband working in New York, taking a position on the DC-based newspaper as a secretary instead. And while she met JFK at a dinner party shortly thereafter, she still harbored ambitions of being a “serious” writer as a young and ambitious Vassar graduate in the early ’50s.

The Kennedys during their visit to Buckingham Palace in 1961.

By Tatiana Dias

By Charley Ross

In a peculiar turn of events, the future Queen proved the catalyst for the soon-to-be First Lady’s shift from a clerical role to a writing one. The then Princess Elizabeth came to DC on a royal tour in 1951, with half a million Americans crowding into the streets to watch her drive past in a motorcade with President Truman. Jackie was among them—later sneaking into an invitation-only press conference swarming with established journalists at the Statler Hotel. Her notes from the event convinced her boss, Frank Waldrop, to pair her up with the stringer behind the paper’s “Inquiring Photographer” column, which saw six carefully chosen people asked for their thoughts on a different topic. Less than a week later, the debutante got her first bylined column by asking six prominent men: “Is Princess Elizabeth as pretty as her picture?”

It made sense, then, that Jackie would be dispatched to London to put questions to the British public ahead of the Coronation. (“Do you think Elizabeth will be England’s last queen?” she enquired of the crowds in Piccadilly Circus.) Also on board the SS United States for the five-day crossing: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, neither of whom had been invited to usher in the reign of Elizabeth II, and disembarked at Le Havre before going on to their Bois de Boulogne home. “Passengers stare at the Duke, aware that if he had not abdicated they would not be sailing to the Coronation of his niece,” Bouvier noted while on board. “Sometimes children ask for autographs, which he gives cheerfully.” Years later, Stéphane Boudin, the interior designer commissioned to redecorate the Windsors’ 14-room apartment in Wallis-blue wallpaper and 18th-century paneling, would help Jackie to reimagine several rooms in the White House.

Jackie wasn’t invited to the coronation either, of course, but rather than checking into a Mayfair hotel, she stayed in the W1 apartment of Lady Abel Smith, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen since 1947. The South Audley Street flat lacked the plush modern amenities of the SS United States. “It was freezing cold in London,” Aileen later recalled. “It was raining all the time. We’d come back to the apartment and sit on the edge of the tub, and put our feet on the bottom, and run hot water over them until we couldn’t stand it any longer.” The streets of London, meanwhile, still bore the scars of the Blitz, with piles of rubble a common sight and post-war privations still making themselves felt. It would be another year until the British government lifted its final rationing restrictions on essentials such as meat.

Naturally, the 23-year-old Jackie focused on more glamorous scenes in her Transatlantic bulletins—writing rapturously about The Dorchester’s façade, created by revered stage designer Oliver Messel and featuring “pale blue balconets” with “purple and gold draperies.” “At night gas-fed torches on long white poles blaze above the main entrance,” continued one of her reports. Not everyone within her earshot was quite so enamored with the hotel, though. “One woman turned to another and said, ‘No, darling, let’s lunch at Claridge’s. That’s where all the deposed monarchs are staying.’” In the evenings, Jackie infiltrated the upper echelons of both British and expat society, dancing at the 400 Club alongside the Marquess of Milford Haven and the Maharaja of Jaipur and attending a party at the Londonderry House Hotel with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Jacqueline Bouvier working as The Washington Times-Herald ’s Inquiring Camera Girl.

The Vassar graduate managed to get a number of solid scoops, too. One of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting told her that she would be going to bed at an unconscionably early hour the night before the ceremony—and with good reason. “They have to be in Westminster Abbey by 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, and their hairdressers arrive at the Palace to fix their hair at 3 a.m.,” Jackie wrote. As her source explained, “We wear a tiara, you know, and that takes a bit of arranging.” An unnamed person was also loose-lipped about a certain element of the coronation regalia. “A secret mark has been placed on the crown of St Edward. This is to enable the Archbishop of Canterbury to distinguish between front and back… He has no intention of making a mistake this time. In 1937, when the Archbishop crowned King George VI, he placed the crown on backwards.”

Jackie’s access on the day of the coronation itself proved more lacking. Even as she brought the atmosphere in “bright and pretty London” to life for The   Washington Times-Herald ’s readers—describing everything from the crowds gathering in Trafalgar Square to the mood at a performance of  Guys and Dolls attended by Princess Margaret —the closest she could get to Westminster Abbey was a seat along the procession route courtesy of the Burberry boutique, where she watched the Gold State Coach roll past, later dashing into the mass of spectators to get quotes for her next piece. As it turns out, it’s a few words she received from America rather than anything she filed to her editor in DC that would change her life irrevocably: “Articles Excellent—But You Are Missed,” JFK wrote in a telegram to his then-girlfriend in an uncharacteristically emotional moment. A month later, their engagement would be announced.

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19 Filming Locations for The Crown That You Can Visit in Real Life

From historically accurate castles to beautiful beaches, here's where Netflix recreated The Crown 's royal splendor.

In honor of the show's recently released sixth season , here are 19 filming locations that you can plan to visit.

Ardverikie Estate stood in for Balmoral Castle.

Ardverikie Estate House at Kinlochlaggan stands in for Queen Elizabeth's beloved Scottish retreat, Balmoral Castle in seasons one, two, four, and five. If you choose to visit, consider staying in holiday cottages on the property.

Several other TV shows have filmed at Ardverikie, including Monarch of the Glen (it featured as Glen Bogle) and Outlander .

Rhinefield House also was used for Balmoral.

"It was a very lucrative piece of business and very beneficial for the hotel. It’s an amazing venue and no surprise people are inspired to use it for their productions," a spokesman for Rhinfield House said . "The hotel was used as a Balmoral venue so it was nothing to do with the New Forest. They filmed mostly around the outdoor pool but inside as well."

Plan your visit

St. Andrews

Prince William met Kate Middleton at the University of St. Andrews in 2001, and the show (Ed McVey as William and Meg Bellamy as Kate) actually filmed on campus .

How to visit campus

York Minster as St George's Chapel in Windsor

Season six of The Crown will depict Charles and Camilla's 2005 wedding , which took place in Windsor. York Minster will stand in as the royal wedding venue.

Waddesdon Manor stood in for the Ritz Paris

Season five of The Crown features Mohamed Al Fayed's purchase of the Ritz Paris; this French Renaissance-style châteauin the English countryside was used to film the interiors.

The Coliseum Theatre stands in for the Dominion Theatre.

Imelda Staunton was pictured filming at the Coliseum theatre in London's West End, recreating the 1995 Royal Variety Performance at the Dominion Theatre.

Season five filmed in San Telmo, Mallorca, Spain

For season five, Elizabeth Debecki (Princess Diana) and Dominic West (Prince Charles) were spotted filming in Mallorca, likely recreating holidays the royal couple took with their sons, Princes William and Harry.

Lossiemouth, Scotland and Macduff, Scotland feature in season five.

Imelda Staunton was photographed filming season five of The Crown in Lossiemouth, north Scotland and nearby Macduff. According to the local paper Strathspey and Badenoch Herald , the Netflix production also filmed at Covesea Lighthouse.

Somerley House acts as Highgrove.

Netflix used Somerley House, the official seat of the Earl of Normanton and an event venue, for Prince Charles's Highgrove home. Bridgerton , too, filmed at the property.

"The cast members Olivia Colman, Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin were super friendly, chatting to the staff at Somerley and signing the house guestbook," a spokesperson said . "In February, a crew of about 120 took, all in all, about two weeks for three minutes on air. They used special haze guns to create an ‘aged’ look to the scenes, and the furniture was a mixture of hired-in props and Somerley’s own. We even had to let the grass grow for a month before they arrived, to make ‘Highgrove’ look a bit overgrown."

Somerleyton Hall country house was used for Sandringham.

Sandringham Estate , perhaps best known as where the royals spend Christmas, features in season four of The Crown . Somerleyton Hall was used to recreate the interiors of the home.

"Somerleyton Hall and Sandringham House share many of the same design roots. Both were originally Jacobean houses that were extensively remodelled in the Victorian era, so they have a very similar feel and sensibility about them," Somerleyton’s events manager Peter Thompson said.

Cwmaman fills in for Aberfan.

The 1966 Aberfan disaster , in which 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a "spoil tip" (or surplus of mining waste) collapsed on a school, plays a key role in The Crown 's third season. But given the sensitivities surrounding the tragedy, scenes about the disaster weren't filmed in Aberfan, but rather a few miles away in Cwmaman.

"It was all very dignified, Olivia Colman is clearly taking her role very seriously," one onlooker told the BBC about the film set ."There was a very sombre mood. I think everyone involved in the production realizes what an awful tragedy Aberfan was."

They filmed in the actual Caernarfon Castle.

The Crown gets points for accuracy in recreating Prince Charles's investiture as the Prince of Wales . The show filmed those scenes at Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, where the 1969 ceremony actually took place.

Winchester Cathedral functions as St. Paul's.

The church in southern Englands stands in for St. Paul's during scenes from Winston Churchill's history-making funeral . In season six, it also stands in for Westminster Abbey, the setting of Princess Diana's funeral .

Hylands House is The Crown's White House.

In the third season of The Crown , Princess Margaret takes a trip to the States, and even meets with sitting President Lyndon B. Johnson . But for filming, the series found a white house a little closer to home. Per Hello , Hylands House in Hylands Park, Chelmsford serves as the president's residence on screen.

Algeciras stands in for Mustique

Helena Bonham Carter was seen filming in Algeciras, Spain. That beach stands in for Princess Margaret's Caribbean escape, Mustique in the final episode of season three .

Belvoir Castle becomes Windsor Castle on screen.

The Crown couldn't film in the Queen's actual Windsor home, so they did the next best thing, and recreated her residence at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.

“It was a great honour to have The Crown filming in our home for a third season," said the Duchess of Rutland. "We are delighted to have some of the best costume makers and directors using Belvoir and some of our favourite rooms, such as the Elizabeth Saloon, used as replicas for Windsor Castle scenes. We wish this series as with all the previous series huge success."

Burghley House, too, stands in for Windsor.

For seasons four and five, Burghley House—near Stamford, Lincolnshire—takes the place of Windsor. The famous Windsor Castle fire was shot at Burghley.

Lancaster House serves as Buckingham Palace.

Those scenes where Camilla goes to visit Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace? Those were filmed at Lancaster House, one of several locations that stand in for the Queen's iconic London home. It's usually closed to the public, but every so often it will open its doors for a special event.

Wilton House, too, stands in for Buckingham Palace.

More than one stately home was required to recreate Buckingham Palace. Wilton House has stood in for the Queen's official royal residence in multiple seasons of The Crown .

Those with a keen eye may recognize the property from other TV shows and movies that have filmed there such as Young Victoria, Pride and Prejudice (the 2004 version), and Outlander .

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

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

• 20th Century

Red Square: The Story of Russia’s Most Iconic Landmark

Alice Loxton

30 oct 2019, @history_alice.

Red Square is undoubtedly one of Moscow’s – and Russia’s – most iconic landmarks. Although it began its life as a shanty town of wooden huts, it was cleared in the 1400s by Ivan III, allowing it to blossom into a rich visual narrative of Russian history. It houses the Kremlin complex, St Basil’s Cathedral and Lenin’s mausoleum.

Although its name is often thought to derive from the blood that flowed during periods of unrest, or to reflect the colours of the communist regime, it is actually of linguistic origin. In the Russian language, ‘red’ and ‘beautiful’ derived from the word krasny , thus it is known as ‘Beautiful Square’ to the Russian people.

A Palm Sunday procession in the 17th century, leaving Saint Basil’s for the Kremlin.

In the 20th century, Red Square became a famous site of official military parades. At one parade, on 7 November 1941, columns of young cadets marched through the square and straight onto the front line, which was only about 30 miles away.

At another parade, the victory parade on 24 June 1945, 200 Nazi standards were thrown on the ground and trampled by mounted Soviet commanders.

The Kremlin

Since 1147, the Kremlin has always been a place of importance as the first stones were laid for the hunting lodge of Prince Juri of Suzdal.

Perched on the Borovitskiy Hill, at the confluence of the Moscow and Neglinnay Rivers, it would soon grow to become a vast complex of Russian political and religious power and is now used as the seat of the Russian Parliament. An old Moscow proverb says

‘Over the city, there is only the Kremlin, and over the Kremlin, there is only God’.

A bird’s eye view of the Kremlin. Image source: Kremlin.ru / CC BY 4.0.

In the 15th century, an enormous fortified wall was built to cut the Kremlin off from the rest of the city. It measures 7 metres thick, 19 metres high, and over one mile long.

It enclosed some of Russia’s most important symbols of piety: the Cathedral of the Dormition (1479), the Church of the Virgin’s Robes (1486) and the Cathedral of the Annunciation (1489). Together, they create a skyline of white turrets and gilded domes – although red stars were added in 1917 when the communists gained power.

The Palace of Facets, the oldest secular structure, was built in 1491 for Ivan III, who imported Italian architects to create a Renaissance masterpiece. The tall bell tower known as ‘Ivan the Terrible’ was added in 1508, and the St Michael Archangel Cathedral was built in 1509.

The Great Kremlin Palace, viewed from across the Movska River. Image source: NVO / CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Great Kremlin Palace was built between 1839 and 1850, in just 11 years. Nicholas I ordered its construction to emphasise the strength of his autocratic regime, and to act as the Tsar’s Moscow residence.

Its five sumptuous reception halls, the Georgievsky, Vladimisky, Aleksandrovsky, Andreyevsky and Ekaterininsky, each represent the orders of the Russian Empire, The Orders of St George, Vladimir, Alexander, Andrew and Catherine.

The Hall of the Order of St. George in the Great Kremlin Palace. Image source: Kremlin.ru / CC BY 4.0.

St Basil’s Cathedral

In 1552, a battle against the Mongols had raged for eight terrible days. It was only when Ivan the Terrible’s army forced the Mongolian troops back inside the city walls that a bloody siege could finish off the fighting. To mark this triumph, St Basil’s was built, officially known as the Cathedral of St Vasily the Blessed.

The Cathedral is topped with nine onion domes, staggered at various heights. They are decorated with mesmerising patterns which were recoloured between 1680 and 1848, when icon and mural art became popular and bright colours were favoured.

Its design seems to stem from the vernacular wooden churches of the Russian North, whilst revealing a confluence with Byzantine styles. The interior and brickwork also betray Italian influence.

An early 20th century postcard of St Basil’s.

Lenin’s mausoleum

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, served as the head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until 1924, when he died from a hemorrhagic stroke. A wooden tomb was erected in Red Square to accommodate the 100,000 mourners who visited in the following six weeks.

During this time, freezing temperatures preserved him almost perfectly. It inspired the Soviet officials not to bury the body, but preserve it forever. The cult of Lenin had started.

Mourners queuing to see Lenin’s frozen body in March 1925, then housed in a wooden mausoleum. Image source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-01169 / CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Once the body had defrosted, time was ticking for the embalming to be completed. Two chemists, without any certainty about the success of their technique, injected a cocktail of chemicals to prevent the body drying up.

All the internal organs were removed, leaving only skeleton and muscle which is now re-embalmed every 18 months by the ‘Lenin Lab’. The brain was taken to the Neurology Centre at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where it was studied to try and explain Lenin’s genius.

However, Lenin’s corpse had already reached early stages of decomposition – dark spots formed on the skin and the eyes had sunk into their sockets. Before the embalming could take place, scientists carefully whitened the skin with acetic acid and ethyl alcohol.

Under the pressure of the Soviet government, they spent months of sleepless nights trying to preserve the body. Their final method remains a mystery. But whatever it was, it worked.

Lenin’s mausoleum. Image source: Staron / CC BY-SA 3.0.

An imposing mausoleum of marble, porphyry, granite and labradorite was constructed as a permanent memorial on Red Square. A guard of honour was placed outside, a position known as ‘Number One Sentry’.

The body was laid out dressed in a modest black suit, lying on a bed of red silk inside a glass sarcophagus. Lenin’s eyes are closed, his hair is combed and his moustache neatly trimmed.

During the Second World War , Lenin’s body was temporarily evacuated to Siberia in October 1941, when it became apparent Moscow was vulnerable to the approaching German army . When it returned, it was joined in 1953 by the embalmed body of Stalin .

Lenin speaking on 1 May 1920.

This reunion was short-lived. In 1961 Stalin’s body was removed during Khrushchev’s Thaw, the period of de-Stalinization. He was buried outside the Kremlin Wall, beside many other Russian leaders of the past century.

Today, Lenin’s mausoleum is free to visit, and the body is treated with great respect. Visitors are given strict instructions regarding their behaviour, such as, ‘You must not laugh or smile’.

Taking photographs is strictly forbidden, and cameras are checked before and after visitors enter the building, to check these rules have been followed. Men are not able to wear hats, and hands must be kept out of pockets.

Featured Image: Alvesgaspar / CC BY-SA 3.0.

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The R&K Guide To Moscow

The World Cup is upon us, but you could argue that it’s already a relic from another era, a time when Putin was looking for peaceable engagement with the West, before he annexed Crimea and unleashed his trolls on the world. But if ordinary Russians are supposed to play the part of pariah, they haven’t been told. It has been a long time since Moscow was this pleasant to visit. The city center is safe, sanitized, ready for your visit. Yes, the calm is a sign of an increasingly efficient autocracy. But we’ve known Moscow through many iterations, and for the casual visitor, this is one of the best yet. (Visit our St. Petersburg guide here.)

How To Do Moscow

Quick hits what to eat, quick hits what to drink, quick hits what to see, features from moscow, more city guides, r&k insider.

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