{"id":466679,"date":"2026-05-03T17:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T17:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466679\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T17:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T17:10:16","slug":"maureen-dowd-his-majesty-gave-our-travesty-donald-trump-a-schooling-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466679\/","title":{"rendered":"Maureen Dowd: His Majesty gave Our Travesty Donald Trump a schooling \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time Charles<\/a> came to the United States<\/a> a state visit, nobody seemed to notice.<\/p>\n

I saw him up close during his trip in autumn 1985, from his stop at JCPenney in a suburban mall to promote British clothing to a starry state dinner. I was impressed.<\/p>\n

Then the Prince of Wales, he had a reputation back then as a bit of a wimp, always chafing in the shadow of his towering mother, Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>, resentful about being relegated to cutting ribbons.<\/p>\n

In a flashy decade full of bling kings such as New York developer Donald Trump<\/a>, Charles seemed like a man from another time. He yearned to be taken seriously and to have an impact on global issues. As charming British actor Peter Ustinov, who attended the state dinner, told me: \u201cHe has a clear sense of what he would do if allowed to. One regrets that he didn\u2019t live in 1400.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touring the sights in Washington DC, Charles impressed salesclerks and senators alike with his genuine interest in culture and politics and his playful and self-deprecating small talk.<\/p>\n

As I wrote in The New York Times back then, \u201che went out of his way to move past protocol, and was equally at home discussing the architecture of Baltimore, the actresses on the television show Dynasty, the opera roles that Beverly Sills made famous and the tenuous state of international relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter. Nobody was paying attention. He was simply the man who accompanied Princess Diana<\/a> to Washington.<\/p>\n

Even without talking much, just tucking her chin in shyly and looking up out of those luminous blue eyes, Diana outshone her prince. It was pretty much a \u201ctotal eclipse of the son\u201d. I don\u2019t remember seeing a single picture of Charles from the state dinner. His remarks are lost to history.<\/p>\n

\"CharlesCharles and Princess Diana with George Bush, then US vice-president, and wife Barbara Bush on the British couple’s state visit to the US in 1985. Photograph: Reuters <\/p>\n

All eyes were on the Sloane Square Cinderella. The state dinner was Diana\u2019s fairy tale turn, conjured by her fairy godmother, Nancy Reagan. The first lady invited Clint Eastwood<\/a>, the ballet great Mikhail Baryshnikov <\/a>and John Travolta<\/a> to dance with the princess who loved dancing. Mrs Reagan directed the Marine Band to put aside the society two-step sheet music and get up to speed on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a great little mover,\u201d Travolta said of Diana, who wore a gorgeous midnight blue velvet gown and a diamond tiara.<\/p>\n

The total effect of the visit was \u201cCharles who?\u201d. Being overshadowed by his young wife, after decades of being overshadowed by his mother, did not boost his ego.<\/p>\n

The ensuing decades would not be kind to Charles. He was mired in scandal and pain.<\/p>\n

But in Washington this past week, Charles came into his own. Forty years after Diana\u2019s Cinderella turn, Charles got to be \u201cCinderfella\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a country rife with No Kings protests, this king was a tonic. He presented himself with elegance, intelligence and wit \u2013 everything that has been wanting in Washington during the Donald Trump era.<\/p>\n

He arrived at a propitious moment to remind the autocrat in the White House why Britain\u2019s rebellious colony ran away: to escape the tyranny of an oppressive king.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the fires of a bitter and bloody Revolutionary War, the triumph of the father of this country, George Washington, and his fellow founders was to forge a democracy founded upon the rights to liberty and the rule of law,\u201d Charles said at the state dinner.<\/p>\n

In his pointed speech to Congress, he reminded the lawmakers that the US constitution, based on Magna Carta, provided checks on a tyrant\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

The king deftly schooled Trump, and Trump took it because he has always been awed by the British royal family. The US president was thrilled when a British newspaper did a genealogy that found he may be a distant cousin of Charles. (Then again, so are the Bushes.) Trump even dropped the tariffs on Scotch to please the king.<\/p>\n

Charles gently reminded the US president, who has been blasting Nato for not helping bail him out of the Iran<\/a> quicksand, that the US\u2019s allies stepped up after 9\/11. The United Kingdom<\/a> battled in Afghanistan<\/a> beside the US, and tried to rebuild it with us, for 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur people have fought and fallen together in defence of the values we cherish,\u201d Charles said.<\/p>\n

The message to Trump was obvious: Don\u2019t berate us for not backing your misadventure in Iran, after we went all in on the US\u2019s misbegotten occupation of Afghanistan and war in Iraq<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gently mocking the territorial Trump at the state dinner, Charles said he, Charles, was already the king of Canada \u2013 no need for another. He also teased: \u201cNow I know you have big plans for the moon, Mr President, but I\u2019ve checked the papers and I rather suspect it is already part of the Commonwealth I\u2019m afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

He quoted Shakespeare\u2019s Henry V to prompt the bellicose US president to seek peace: \u201cMy speech entreats, that I may know … why gentle Peace should not … bless us with her former qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was lovely to hear the King\u2019s English, devoid of the vengeance, blasphemy and vulgarity common in the US president\u2019s language.<\/p>\n

The king put a salve on a blistered partnership. Trump has trashed UK prime minister Keir Starmer<\/a> as \u201ccowardly\u201d and a \u201closer\u201d for not helping with Iran. British ambassador Christian Turner didn\u2019t help with his leaked comment that the \u201cspecial relationship\u201d the United States has now is with Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On his last state visit, Charles was in the shade of Diana\u2019s radiance. On this one, he radiated an \u00e9lan of his own \u2013 a class act, shining next to the boorish Trump. At long last, Charles was in no one\u2019s shadow. At 77, he has done what he always yearned to do: make his mark on the world.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time Charles came to the United States a state visit, nobody seemed to notice. I saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[18928,9,10,356,13,14,6,18929,40488,71,5446,8417,11,12,15,16,5,14380,7,8,393,384,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-466679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iraq","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-keir-starmer","19":"tag-king-charles","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-princess-diana","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories","28":"tag-united-kingdom","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-world","31":"tag-world-news","32":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116511757069916915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}