They were two of the most famous women in the world. Queen Elizabeth and Jacqueline Kennedy, the dazzling 32-year-old wife of JFK, the youngest president in United States history. And also two of the most private. So what did Jackie really think after the two women had a private lunch at Buckingham Palace in 1962?
"She was impressed by the Queen," says Clint Hill, the 90-year-old former U.S. Secret Service agent who served under five presidents and was in charge of the First Lady's security detail.
In 1962, the Queen, then 35, invited Jackie to a lunch when the First Lady was in London visiting her sister, Lee Radziwill, who lived there with her husband Prince Stanislaw Radziwill.
"It was a private lunch at Buckingham Palace," says Hill, who shares new details about the meeting in his upcoming book, My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy, written with his wife Lisa McCubbin Hill.
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"I went in as far as the door," he recalls. "We had an understanding with Scotland Yard not to go in." But as he accompanied her back to her sister's opulent home on Buckingham Place, not far from the palace, he says, "Mrs. Kennedy was very pleased by how it had gone. The Queen was extremely hospitable, and she enjoyed spending time with her."
While the subject of their much talked about formal dinner with their husbands, President Kennedy and Prince Phillip, a year earlier at Buckingham Palace, was depicted in Season Two of The Crown, this was a much more private encounter with few, if any details, released to the public.
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"They were both relatively young and they both held positions on the world stage," says Hill, one of the few remaining witnesses to the historic moment.
"They were more alike than we might have first thought," adda Pamela Keogh, author of Jackie Style. "They had a deep sense of history and were both essentially shy women who were put on the world stage and both rose to the occasion admirably. Like the Queen, Jackie knew how to exercise soft power to get things done, and I don't think we should underestimate the fact they both loved horses."
And while Jackie rarely, if ever, responded to any sort of impromptu question asked in public, she did answer a group of reporters who asked if she had enjoyed "an English lunch" with the Queen that day. "Her Majesty was so kind to have me there," said Jackie in her signature soft voice as she returned to Lee's home. "I don't think I should say anything about it except for how grateful I am and how charming she was."
