On the latest two-part edition of the Mail’s the ‘Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things’ podcast, historian Kate Williams and Royal biographer Robert Hardman look back at some of British Royalties’ worst houseguests.
The late Queen Elizabeth II played official host to various world leaders, completing a record 113 state visits during her 70-year reign.
At Buckingham Palace, in her role as Head of State, she entertained everyone from the controversial, such as US President Donald Trump, to the downright crazed and murderous, like Ugandan President Idi Amin.
But one guest above all, the Queen’s official biographer Robert Hardman told the podcast, stands out as a true houseguest from hell.
The last state visit hosted by Queen Elizabeth II was US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania
The state visit of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu
Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena ruled Romania with an iron fist for over 25 years between 1965 and 1989.
Guilty of a litany of human rights abuses and murders, the Ceasecus were later unceremoniously deposed and killed by their people as the Soviet Union, which protected them, slowly collapsed.
Ignoring the warnings of French diplomats, Prime Minister Harold Wilson requested the Queen host an official state visit of the Ceasescus, scheduled for June 1978.
Hardman explained: ‘This happened at the height of the Cold War – it’s West versus East. Two superpowers up against each other.
‘However, what the West sees in Ceausescu is an independent spirit… someone who is prepared to tow a slightly different line.
‘He talks a lot about setting up commercial partnerships. Britain thinks it might be able to do a deal with him – and he was very keen to meet the Queen.
‘Don’t forget, Britain is an economic basket case. We had very little money. We had terrible inflation, and no one wanted to lend us anything.
‘Ceasescu makes it very clear that no deal will happen unless he gets a state visit and the full treatment Britain can provide: including a trip to Buckingham Palace to stay with the Queen.’
The Queen was supposedly unhappy about the visit, calling Mrs Ceasescu a ‘viper’ in a letter to the British embassy in Bucharest.
The French had already received the Romanian leaders before they visited Britain.
Rumours swirled from the other side of the Channel that the couple had torn apart and trashed the magnificent diplomatic rooms the Ceasescus were housed in.
Robert Hardman: ‘Britain thinks it might be able to do a deal with Ceausescu – and he was very keen to meet the Queen’ Listen here
The Queen was supposedly unhappy about the visit, calling Mrs Ceasescu a ‘viper’ in a letter to the British embassy in Bucharest. Listen here
Robert Hardman: ‘They were so objectionable, so charmless: she had absolutely nothing to say to them.’ Listen here
‘The Elysee Palace guest quarters were a wreck’, Hardman said.
‘The Queen got on the phone to the master of the Royal household and said: If it moves, I want it taken out of the Belgian Suite. Do not leave anything of note or value in there.
‘Everyone was just dreading this couple.’
When the Ceasescus finally arrived, the dictators were convinced that the Queen’s staff were spies, bugging their rooms and washing their clothes with poison.
They talked privately together out in the Buckingham Palace gardens, falsely believing it was the only place they could communicate without intrusion.
On one of their conspiratorial walks, Elizabeth II noticed the couple walking towards her.
‘The Queen told Sir Anthony J, the writer, that she’d been out walking her corgis in the garden, as she often liked to do’, Hardman said.
‘The Queen said she decided to hide behind a bush to avoid talking to her houseguests. They were that bad.
‘They were so objectionable, so charmless, that she had absolutely nothing to say to them. For the first time in her entire life, she hid to avoid them.’
To hear more tales of Royal houseguests from Hell, search for Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things – wherever you get your podcasts.
