If 2024 had been the year of health setbacks, then 2025 was the year when the monarchy was suddenly a trophy soft power asset – caught in a custody battle. In short, 2025 was about Donald Trump.

Mr Trump’s fondness for the Royal Family was genuine and deep-seated. His first presidential visit to the UK was in 2018 (ahead of his State Visit in 2019) and that event came with one very firm pre-condition. ‘It was made very clear to us that the reason Donald Trump wanted to come was to meet the Queen,’ the British foreign secretary at the time, Jeremy Hunt, admitted. ‘She was our greatest asset, and so we were told by the Americans, “If you want him to come and it involves tea with the Queen, he’ll come.” ’ The Queen was very happy to welcome him to Windsor for tea at the end of his short visit.

A popular press narrative, regularly resurrected by Trump critics on both sides of the Atlantic, has taken root that Mr Trump was ‘rude’ to the Queen. The charges are that he had kept her waiting on the greeting dais by arriving late and that he had walked in front of her during the inspection of the Guard of Honour in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle. Members of the Royal Household who were actually there deny this, saying that the Queen was not remotely put out.

‘Trump did nothing wrong at all. He arrived exactly on time. It was the Queen who had come out early because she wanted to check the dais and the steps, which were always a concern at that stage of her life,’ says one senior member of her staff. ‘You have to remember that this was her first big event since the Duke of Edinburgh’s retirement from public duties the year before.

‘She wanted to get it right. It was the same inspecting the troops. All through her reign, it would be the duke who escorted the visitor to do the inspection and she hadn’t done it before. And Trump did the right thing. The visitor is always invited to walk first and she had to gesture to him to go in front. The anti-Trump crowd were determined to find a faux pas. There wasn’t one.’

One of the late Queen’s staff recalls that the conversation flowed as the monarch served Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, tea in the Oak Room. The two leaders had a ‘genuine rapport’, not least because they had some things in common: both had Scottish mothers and both had significant landholdings in Scotland. ‘It wasn’t just small talk. They discussed policy matters. He was super charming, on his best behaviour throughout,’ says the royal staffer. One thing that struck everyone, including the Queen, was the President’s energy: ‘He would bound up and down the stairs. When Joe Biden came three years later, we had to put him in the creaky old Edwardian lift.’

The visit had been scheduled to last 20 minutes but went on for 40. It also meant that when Mr Trump returned for the proper State Visit the following year, there was a link. ‘It’s always easier when you can begin by saying, “Hello again, Mr President.” There was a connection there,’ says the Palace source. ‘No doubt about that.’

Several years later, the moment had lost none of its magic for Mr Trump as he was filmed looking through a new book of photographs of his first presidency, many of them featuring him with the Queen and the Royal Family. ‘It’s a piece of history at the highest level,’ he murmured, flicking through the pages. ‘She was unbelievable. We had a really good relationship. There’s Charles. He’s a really good person. Camilla is fantastic.’

Queen Elizabeth and Donald Trump are pictured inspecting the Guard of Honor at Windsor Castle in July 2018

Trump and the Queen clinking glasses after delivering remarks. The president ordinarily drinks white grape juice at such functions whereas the Queen drank water

Trump and Melania walk from the Quadrangle at Windsor after inspecting the Guard of Honour in 2018

In 2025, a new British government wanted a new monarch to rekindle that rapport with a new US administration. No one could deny, for example, that Mr Trump’s past pronouncements on climate change were at odds with those of the King in princely days. However, as noted earlier, the monarch reigns with different responsibilities, just as today’s judge is not yesterday’s barrister.

The initial signs were more than encouraging on a blustery Saturday night in Paris in December 2024. Mr Trump was still in pre-inauguration president-elect mode and had joined other world leaders flying to Paris for the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, five years on from the fire that destroyed much of the cathedral. Earlier in the day, it was announced that the Prince of Wales, attending on behalf of his father, would have a meeting with Mr Trump before the service started.

However, with northern Europe being battered by Storm Darragh, William’s plane was delayed and profuse apologies were conveyed to the Trump team that there would be no time to meet before the service. With some leaders, Mr Trump’s response would have been a shrug and a ‘so sorry, see you soon’. However, the president-elect’s staff simply re-arranged the meeting to a slot after the service. What’s more, the prince would not have to travel to meet Mr Trump. Instead, the president-elect would come round to see him at the British embassy.

To cap it all, a 15-minute meeting went on – and on. British diplomats were somewhat amused when, after 45 minutes, the embassy received a call from the Elysee Palace. President Macron’s staff wanted to know where Mr Trump had got to, as the presidential banquet was starting.

‘Mr Trump very much enjoyed the conversation,’ says one of the British team, ‘and that conversation was incredibly warm about the memories that he had of meeting the prince’s grandmother. There was a lot of talk about the late Queen and of how important that was to the President.’

The next day, Mr Trump told the New York Post that the Prince ‘looked really very handsome last night’ during a ‘great, great talk’.

Within a few weeks of Mr Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Sir Keir was in the Oval Office for one of the President’s new-style televised armchair ‘welcomes’, alongside a sofa full of Trump acolytes. Sir Keir wasted no time in playing what some commentators would call his Trump trump card: the Royal Family.

Successive British governments have done this. Go through the declassified files on the famous Ronald Reagan visit of 1982 – at the height of the Falklands War – and the diplomatic traffic shows that the top priority for the president on his first European tour was clearly riding at Windsor with the Queen. Sir Keir was determined to play similar mood music.

Robert Hardman’s exclusive details on the Queen’s impression of Donald Trump have been adapted from the new edition of his biography Charles III: The Inside Story

Queen Elizabeth II sitting with Donald Trump at an event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in June 2024

‘It is my pleasure to bring from His Majesty the King a letter,’ he began, nervously. ‘He sends his best wishes – but he asks me to bear this letter and bring it to you.’

It is very telling, though little remarked upon at the time, that Mr Trump’s first reaction was neither to tear it open, nor to pocket it for later inspection. Instead, he wanted to do the right thing when it came to royalty. ‘Am I supposed to read it right now?’ he replied, seeking guidance.

‘Yes, please do,’ said Sir Keir. ‘I need to tell him what your reaction is.’ ‘He is a great, great gentleman,’ murmured the President as he spent 17 seconds scanning the letter before concluding: ‘That’s – wow! Well that is really nice. I must make sure his signature is on that otherwise it’s not quite as meaningful. And it is!’ A handsome, thick-nibbed ‘Charles R’ was waved around before the cameras. ‘And that’s quite a signature, isn’t it. He’s a beautiful man and a wonderful man. And I’ve known him – I know him very well, actually.’

Rather than take the lead and announce the big ‘reveal’, Mr Trump was, again, happy to defer.

‘Perhaps you’d like to say what that very important paragraph says,’ he asked Sir Keir, who duly obliged, addressing the room. ‘Yes, this is a letter from His Majesty the King. It’s an invitation for a second State Visit. This is really special. This has never happened before! This is unprecedented and I think that symbolises the strength of the relationship between us. I think the last State Visit was a tremendous success.’ ‘It was,’ Mr Trump assured him.

‘His Majesty the King wants to make this even better than that,’ the Prime Minister went on, repeating the ‘unprecedented’ nature of a second visit. Lawyer that he is, Sir Keir now needed to clinch the deal: ‘What I haven’t got yet is your answer. I do need to…’

To which Mr Trump beamed and replied instantly: ‘The answer is yes. On behalf of our wonderful First Lady Melania and myself, we look forward to being there and honouring the King and honouring your country. Your country is a fantastic country.’

‘I shall happily take that back to His Majesty,’ Sir Keir concluded.

Trump and Melania Trump with Queen Elizabeth walking into the Music Room for a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in June 2019

‘It’s beautiful,’ murmured the President, before remembering to retrieve the letter: ‘I’m going to keep that one!’

British diplomats could not have wished for a more promising opening encounter with the new administration. Some veterans within the royal circle, however, were uncomfortable with the lack of decorum surrounding an invitation from the sovereign. ‘It was like seeing someone with their trousers down,’ was how one described it. ‘These things should be done with dignity.’ The fault, say the critics, was not Mr Trump’s, but Sir Keir’s.

On her initial visit to the first Trump administration in 2017, the then-British PM Theresa May had also delivered a royal invitation to make a State Visit to Britain. That letter had not been ripped open in front of the cameras, but conveyed in private and its contents announced afterwards. Sir Keir could have done the same.