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SARAH VINE: The night I saw a flash of anger from the Queen while Trump held court at a State banquet in his honour
You don’t get to the grand old age of 96 without learning a thing or two about human nature.
Imagine if the late Queen had kept a log of all the many dignitaries she’d had occasion to meet during the course of her record-breaking reign. What a fascinating document that would be, what insights might lie within its pages.
After all, as Craig Brown points out in his brilliant new book, A Voyage Around The Queen (serialised this week in the Mail), she got to meet practically everyone of significance over the past 70 years, including some distinctly dodgy characters.
Nicolae Ceaușescu, Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito, Vladimir Putin – they were all entertained by Her late Majesty.
Apart from the time she supposedly hid behind a bush to avoid speaking to Ceaușescu, if she had any sort of opinion about her guests she tended to express it tangentially.
Queen and Trump at the state banquet in 2019, when they 'sat next to each other... at the top of a huge U-shaped table groaning with beautiful blooms and glittering crystal'
For example, Lord Blunkett once recalled how, during Vladimir Putin’s State visit in 2003, the Russian premier arrived almost 15 minutes late.
When his entourage finally swung into view Blunkett’s guide dog, Sadie, started barking. Mortified, he apologised to the Queen. She simply replied, ‘Dogs have interesting instincts, don’t they?’
She had a brilliant way of making her feelings known via a few carefully chosen phrases. Perhaps her most famous one was ‘recollections may vary’ - her withering response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s preposterous Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021.
It follows that for the late Elizabeth II to be critical of a head of state – and not just any head of state: Donald Trump, the then President of America, one of Britain’s closest allies – she must have been really quite ticked off.
According to Brown, at a lunch a few weeks after one of Trump’s official visits, she described him to a fellow guest as ‘very rude’; he writes that ‘she particularly disliked the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting’.
She is also said to have speculated that he ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him?
Ouch. I mean, neither are particularly controversial opinions among Trump detractors; but from the late Queen herself, always such a shrewd judge of character, that’s quite damning.
Especially since, in typical fashion, The Donald thought he had been a big hit. ‘There are those that say they have never seen the Queen have a better time, a more animated time,’ he told Fox News.
The Queen and Trump met two years running, in 2018 and 2019. The second time was a State visit when he saw her in a more informal setting at Windsor Castle (that was the time he famously ambled ahead of her, forcing her to side-step him); and again, in the far more formal setting of a State banquet at Buckingham Palace.
There, they sat next to each other in the splendour of the banqueting suite, at the top of a huge U-shaped table groaning with beautiful blooms and glittering crystal, flanked by ever-watchful equerries and tiara-laden ladies-in-waiting.
I know because – astonishingly – I was there, somewhere towards the bottom of that table, seated next to Sir Simon Case (these days the head of the Civil Service but back then the man in charge of Prince William’s private office), and one-removed from Tiffany Trump, the President’s daughter from his second marriage to Marla Maples. A fairly shallow vessel, as I discovered when I tried to engage her in conversation.
It was a magnificent evening, my first (and undoubtedly last) glimpse of that dazzling world. The circumstances were slightly bizarre: Jeremy Corbyn (the then leader of the Opposition), being an avid Republican, had turned down his invitation; as a result, my then husband, Michael Gove, had been invited in his capacity as Secretary of State for the Environment – and I as his plus-one.
I remember it like it was yesterday: the paintings, the gilding, the Beefeaters, the slightly bizarre choice of music, the incongruously humdrum bowls of crisps at the reception beforehand, the confusing array of cutlery and glasses, the giant mirrors, the well-oiled formality, the Chateau Lafite. Especially the Chateau Lafite.
But the dinner itself was not even the highlight of the evening. That came after the main event, while we were enjoying our coffee and chocolates. A discreet tap on the shoulder and we were ushered into a side-room.
It was the royal equivalent of a humble Swiftie being handed a back-stage pass to meet Tay-Tay herself.
As I wrote at the time, like walking into Madame Tussauds only to discover that all the waxworks had come alive. Off to the right, Princes Andrew and Edward. On my left, Ivanka Trump deep in conversation with the then Duchess of Cambridge. Beyond them, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, as they were. All just chatting away as though this were a perfectly normal drinks party.
Honestly, quite surreal, especially for a girl from the Mumbles, Wales
In the middle of all of it was Trump, sucking all who came near him into his orbit, like a giant pulsating orange sun. His presence was palpable – that odd stature, his chest puffed out, head tilted back, jutting jaw, that unique diction. Not charisma, exactly, but something else, a mixture of bravado, arrogance and extreme awkwardness.
And yes, he was constantly looking over the shoulder of whoever he was talking to, seeing if there was someone more interesting in the room.
Melania was keeping well away from the scrum surrounding him. Nevertheless, she was watching proceedings like a cat, her face as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa’s.
I made my way over to where she was standing next to the wife of the American Ambassador, whom I vaguely knew. Up close, Melania looked older, but those cat’s eyes of her were mesmerising, as was her exquisite white dress against her expensive tan. Everything about her was impeccable, from her appearance to her conversation, every inch the consummate political wife.
The Queen is also said to have speculated that he ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him? Pictured: Queen Elizabeth II, Donald Trump and Melania Trump during a state visit to London in 2019
We chatted and then, as always happens at these things, Melania was ushered away to talk to someone more important and I found myself suddenly alone.
It was then that I saw her. Out of the corner of my eye, a small, dazzling figure in shimmering white and diamonds moving across the floor, just inches away from me. The Queen herself, Elizabeth II.
Except something was wrong. She did not seem at all happy; in fact, I would go as far to say that she was extremely displeased. All around me, various equerries and ladies in waiting stiffened to attention, their royal antennae clearly on alert.
‘Who left that door open?’ she snapped to a nearby flunky, the irritation audible in her voice. ‘That door is supposed to be kept shut.’
It was clear that something – or perhaps someone – had tried her patience to the limit. It was also very clear that she had had quite enough for one night and that the evening, as far as she was concerned, was over.
The ladies-in-waiting fluttered to her side, surrounding her like a flock of elegant, elderly swans – and she was gone.
Was it The Donald who had soured her temper? Or was she really just cross because someone had left a door open?
Recollections may vary, of course. But I have a sneaking feeling that Craig Brown is right: the door actually had nothing to do with it.