When Queen Elizabeth met President Trump

• Queen Elizabeth II met with every US president who served during her life, except Lyndon B. Johnson.
• The Queen's meetings with President Donald Trump, in 2018 and 2019, were surely the most unusual.

Americans first saw Elizabeth Alexandria Mary Windsor as a little girl of 3 on the cover of Time magazine. All curls and sweet pudgy arms, she looked into the camera with a dutiful demeanor that would define the rest of her days. Unable to pronounce her name, she called herself "Lilibet," though she was officially known as Princess Elizabeth of York.

When King Edward VIII, her uncle, caused a constitutional crisis by abdicating in 1936 to marry a twice-divorced American woman, Elizabeth's father became King George VI. At 10, "Lilibet" became the heir apparent.

Her first official visit to America came in 1951 when she was still a princess. Her father was ill, and she and the Duke of Edinburgh represented the Crown in a six-week cross-country tour of Canada with a hastily arranged last-minute stop-over in Washington, DC. "When I was a little boy, I read about a fairy princess, and there she is," President Harry Truman told the press.

Two years later, she was crowned Queen of England.

And, over the next seven decades, in service to the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom that had been forged by two world wars, Queen Elizabeth II would meet with every US president except Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Queen's meetings with President Donald Trump, in 2018 and again in 2019, were surely the most unusual.

Trump had become so politically toxic that his first state visit to Britain was downgraded to a working visit. This meant no pomp, no pageantry, and no ballroom banquet hosted by the Queen.

In fact, that 2018 visit caused such outrage on the streets of London — with more than 250,000 people protesting the president — that Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to move the site of her dinner for him to Blenheim Palace, 50 miles outside the city. The House of Commons refused to extend an invitation for him to address Parliament as other world leaders had done, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The most humiliating insult for Trump came from the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who allowed protesters to fly a giant orange balloon that depicted the president as a pouting fat baby in a diaper holding a cellphone in his tiny hands.

Trump lashed out. He called Khan a "stone cold loser" and complained to The Sun, a right-wing tabloid: "I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London. I used to love London as a city …But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?"

Anti-Trump protests had been organized for every stop of his visit. In Windsor, where Trump and the first lady had been invited for tea with the Queen, he kept the protesters and the 92-year-old monarch waiting for 10 to 15 minutes in 80-degree heat.

When he arrived the Queen gestured for him to walk with her into the quadrangle to inspect the Coldstream Guards. Instead, Trump walked ahead of her, leaving Her Majesty to face his backside. Then he abruptly stopped, forcing her to sidestep and walk behind him to get alongside him. This do-si-do caused a social-media frenzy, with one man tweeting: "This is hilarious. The Queen acting like she's training one of her dogs as Trump struggles to master the art of walking."

The British press noted Her Majesty's unusual solo appearance, pointing out the absence of any and all royals: Prince Philip had retired "due to health." Prince Charles was "otherwise unavailable." Prince William was "playing polo." Prince Harry was "previously engaged," as was his wife, Meghan Markle, whom Trump had pronounced as "nasty" for objecting to his election.

More subtle was the Queen, who appeared wearing the little agate flower pin that Obama had given her.

Preparing for his second UK visit, in 2019, Trump directed his staff to make sure he received everything that had been given to his predecessor, whose international popularity continued to rankle. He demanded to stay overnight at Buckingham Palace, which White House aides told Downing Street was "critically important." They were told this wasn't possible because the royal residence would be undergoing extensive renovations. Trump aides predicted a presidential "hissy."

Watching the memos fly back and forth, the British ambassador in Washington warned the Home Office that the president was "inept" and "incompetent," that his staff was "uniquely dysfunctional," and that the president was headed for inevitable "disgrace." When those cables leaked to the press, Trump demanded the ambassador be recalled. As a result, Britain's top diplomat lost his job for telling the truth.

The day of Trump's arrival in London, where he stayed at the US Embassy, supporters of the human-rights charity Amnesty had unfurled five banners facing the embassy's windows: "Resist Sexism," "Resist Racism," "Resist Hate," "Resist Cruelty," and "Resist Trump."

The highlight of that state visit for the president was the Queen's banquet at Buckingham Palace, which, as he'd requested, included his four children and their spouses.

The evening was almost faux pas free until after the president's toast to the Queen, "a great, great woman," he breached royal protocol by placing his hand on her back in an awkward gesture of thanks.

The next day he called Fox News' "Fox and Friends," his favorite conservative talk show: "I have such a great relationship [with the Queen], and we were laughing and having fun. And her people said she hasn't had so much fun in 25 years. Then I got criticized for it because they said we were having too much fun… I feel I know her so well and she certainly knows me very well right now, but we have a very good relationship with the United Kingdom."

Such was the Queen's charm.

Kitty Kelley is the author of "The Royals," a best-selling history of the British royal family.