Queen Elizabeth II will host Joe Biden, first lady Jill at Windsor. Here's everything we know.
American presidents come and go; Queen Elizabeth II abides. And offers them tea.
At 95 and less than a year before she celebrates her Platinum Jubilee marking an unprecedented 70 years on the throne, Her Majesty is getting ready to meet her 13th occupant of the White House, President Joe Biden and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, at Windsor Castle on Sunday, after the conclusion of a summit he is attending in Cornwall.
As the president's press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters said last week, "Who among us wouldn't want to meet the queen? … They issued, of course, a graceful invitation, which he certainly accepted. He's looking forward to seeing her with Dr. Biden as well."
This will be the Bidens' first overseas trip since taking office and his first meeting with the queen as president. But he's spent nearly five decades in Washington and the White House says he met Her Majesty in 1982 when he was in his second term as a U.S. senator from Delaware.
During her reign, the queen has been treated to a record five State Dinners at the White House – more than any other monarch or head of state according to the White House Historical Association.
The announcement:Queen Elizabeth II and Joe Biden to meet at Windsor Castle
Which US presidents has Queen Elizabeth II met?
No other human being alive now (or ever) can say what she can say: to have met every serving American president except one (President Lyndon Johnson) out of 14 since 1951, historians say. Her first was President Harry Truman, whom she met when she was Princess Elizabeth, the year before she became queen.
That record is in part due to her age and long service. But it's also because of the esteem in which she is held. The president of the United States may be the most powerful world leader but the queen is arguably the most famous and the most well-liked, possessed of tremendous soft power earned over seven decades.
So the Bidens, who took office just under five months ago, are no doubt aware this meeting will be a date with a woman who is as much a living symbol of history as the 1,000-year-old castle in which they will meet.
Although Buckingham Palace is the queen's working residence, she has been sheltering and working at her weekend residence at Windsor Castle west of London since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Next year:Britain plans celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's upcoming 70 years on the throne
What to expect from queen's meeting with the Bidens
The meeting with the Bidens will not be a state visit; it's a more informal courtesy call of the sort former President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump carried out when they dropped by for tea with Her Majesty at the castle in 2018. (The following year, she hosted them for a state visit, including the usual lavish state banquet at Buckingham Palace.)
Typically, the actual meeting with the queen is private but the pageantry aspect (at which the royals excel) includes an outdoor massing of scarlet-clad troops in the castle Quadrangle with the monarch and the president pacing down the lines to inspect the Guard of Honour as the band plays on.
(The Quadrangle will be getting a workout this weekend: On Saturday, a mini-Trooping the Colour parade celebrating the queen's official birthday will take place there, the second year this usually sprawling London ceremony has been reduced and moved to the castle due to the pandemic.)
President Biden, who's spent decades attending official ceremonies on the world stage, can be expected to avoid some of the same missteps perceived by Trump's legion of critics in Britain at the time.
The Bidens arrived in the United Kingdom on Wednesday. He's attending the Group of Seven leaders' summit in scenic and far-from-London Cornwall, which began Friday.
What will the first lady's schedule look like?
The Bidens met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson (they married last week) on Thursday. Afterwards, Jill Biden and Johnson met separately over tea. They were supposed to tour St. Michael’s Mount, the historic castle and island off the coast of Cornwall, but the trip was canceled due to bad weather, according to the first lady's office.
As is usual at these summits, the first lady will take part in the program organized by Johnson for G7 spouses on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, she appeared with Duchess Kate of Cambridge at a local school in Cornwall to highlight their joint interest in early childhood education.
And Friday evening, the Bidens and other G7 leaders will attend a reception hosted by the queen, Prince Charles and his wife, Duchess Camilla of Cornwall, and Prince William and Kate. The get-together, confirmed late Thursday by the White House, was an indication that the British crown and government view the first G7 summit of the Biden administration as important enough to deploy the top royals to mingle with the visitors.
Also on Saturday, the first lady will meet with Bude Surf Veterans, a local volunteer group (partially funded by Prince Harry's Invictus Games) that helps military veterans cope with physical or mental health injuries through surfing. Biden has made support for veterans and military families one of her FLOTUS causes.
After their meeting with the queen Sunday, the first lady will meet with U.K. veterans who participated in Walk of America, a 2018 expedition led by Walking with the Wounded to share stories of injured service members, and for which Biden served as patron.
Recent royal events shape narrative ahead of the meeting
The queen's government hopes Britain can use its role as host nation this year to help forge a post-Brexit "Global Britain" role, and to show that the G7 club of rich nations still has clout.
Lack of clout is not something the queen has to worry about. But she comes to this meeting after several years of family joys and tribulations.
On the joy side, there was the welcome birth on June 4 in Santa Barbara, California, of her 11th great-grandchild, Lilibet "Lili" Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, daughter and second child of her grandson, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Duchess Meghan of Sussex.
'Delighted':Kate Middleton and Prince William congratulate Harry and Meghan on birth of Lilibet Diana
The queen and other senior members of the family were "delighted" at the news, the palace said in a statement. Diana honors Harry's late mother, Princess Diana. Lilibet is the name the queen called herself as a toddler unable to pronounce Elizabeth; it was adopted as a private family name used by her grandfather, father and husband. The baby will be called Lili.
On the tribulation side, there was the death of her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on April 9, just short of his 100th birthday on June 10. Forced by the pandemic to reduce the long-planned funeral and enforce social distancing, the nevertheless sublime service was marked by the poignant image of the grieving queen sitting alone in St. George's Chapel at Windsor.
Her second son, Prince Andrew Duke of York, 61, has been benched since 2019 due to scandal over an interview about his relationship with a convicted sex-offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Then, her beloved grandson Harry, 36, and his biracial American wife, the former Meghan Markle, 39, gave up their royal roles and moved to America in 2020.
In a March interview with Oprah Winfrey watched by millions worldwide, they explained their departure by citing racism in the media and in the royal family, and what they saw as a lack of support for their mental health issues arising from the pressures of being in the royal family and feeling trapped by the restrictions of royal life.
Stunned, especially by the racism allegations, the queen issued a statement promising the claims would be taken seriously and addressed privately, although "some recollections may vary."
So it was more bad news last week when The Guardian reported explosive new allegations, based on documents in the National Archives, that as recently as the late 1960s Buckingham Palace courtiers banned “coloured immigrants or foreigners” from clerical jobs in the royal household, relegating them to domestic jobs only.
New racism allegations hit Buckingham Palace – and not from Prince Harry or Duchess Meghan
