Reagan and the queen shared a special bond

DIXON – It didn’t make him Sir Ronald, but on June 14, 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made Ronald Reagan an Honourary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, (English spelling, of course), which is the highest honor the United Kingdom can give a foreigner.

The honorary knighthood is awarded for services to Britain, and was a symbol of her esteem for Reagan, who by then had become a close friend of the monarch.

As did most who met him, the queen found Reagan to be quite charming (he was the first president ever to be invited to stay overnight at Windsor Castle.)

She also admired his horsemanship, they rode together during his visit, and and two developed a friendship that lasted the rest of his life.

In March 1983, the royal couple visited the Reagans at their California ranch. It was two years into the Republican’s presidency and a year after he visited the castle.

It was the queen’s first visit to California, and she wound up feeling more at home than she expected.

According to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum website:

At the start of their 10-day visit to the West Coast, the queen and Prince Phillip were greeted by a rare and severe March rainstorm, which distressed her hosts, the Reagans, but seemed to invigorate the queen.

They planned to sail into Santa Barbara on Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia to meet up with the president and Nancy Reagan before heading up to their Rancho Del Cielo for lunch and a horseback ride around the ranch, but 30-foot waves meant the royal couple instead took a U.S. Air Force plane from Long Beach to Goleta to meet the Reagans.

A low-key reception was held in a hangar, a row of howitzers performed a 21-gun salute and the Air Force band played “God Save the Queen” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the group left for the ranch in two separate limousines.

The weather made road conditions so bad, though, that they had to switch to SUVs, dodging uprooted trees and working their way around impassable roads.

The Queen described the trip as “delightful and terribly exciting.”

“I knew before we came that we had exported many of our traditions to the United States, I had not realized before that weather was one of them,” she said at a formal dinner the next day.

No horse ride for her, though, thanks to the storms.

On the third day of the visit, on March 3, 1983, the two couples and others had dinner on the yacht, in honor of the Reagans’ 31st wedding anniversary.

“It was a magic evening,” Reagan wrote in his diary. “The Queen & His Highness are really warm, likable people.”