At Washington’s tomb, a British royal honors the man who kicked out the Crown

By Nicky Robertson, CNN

(CNN) — On an autumn day in 1860, a bearded British man visited George Washington’s tomb at his final resting place in Virginia. While there he paused to plant a small buckeye tree. The tree would grow, and so would he, to become King Edward VII of England, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, Emperor of India.

During that humble pilgrimage, the then Prince Albert Edward, began a long tradition of members of the British royal family visiting George Washington’s Mount Vernon, a sort of reverent homage to the man who helped end British rule, and set a rot in the Empire.

Over 160 years later, on a particularly warm October day the modern Prince Edward followed his Great Great Grandfather’s tradition by laying a wreath at the tomb of Washington at his Mount Vernon home. History was repeating, ancient bonds once damaged in war, silenced, and soothed in the quiet moments after.

A group of tourists at Mount Vernon told the duke and the cluster of those associated with with Mount Vernon, that they had come from all over North America to share the moment, and themselves remake bonds broken some two and half centuries ago.

The duke is the second senior royal to go on a pilgrimage to America this year as it celebrates its 250th birthday. In part it is a reaffirmation of America’s independence by a family who felt its less-than-harmonious divorce from British rule more than any other, and a celebration of the bonds that now exist.

When King Charles III made his first visit as monarch to Washington DC earlier this year, he and US President Donald Trump highlighted the importance of the enduring “special relationship” between the US and the UK.

“Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it, so perhaps, in this example, we can discern that our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded – a product of the common democratic, legal and social traditions in which our governance is rooted to this day,” the king said his speech to Congress this year.

During the duke’s visit to Virginia that “special relationship” returned to center stage. This week as a UK airbase used by the US military appeared under serious threat, Trump sang his special partner’s praises in partnering to hunt down the assumed attackers, saying the US was “working with Britain, it was an amazing job.”

However, Trump’s announcement last week that he might ban diesel exports, including to the UK — which imports one third of its diesel from the US — became a bit of a buzz kill on the base cooperation vibe. Diesel prices on UK forecourts are the highest they’ve ever been, economists are raising the alarm and the oh-so-elusive special bond is yo-yoing toward breaking point.

Christian Turner, the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the US, who accompanied the duke as he walked in his long-dead relative’s footsteps, told CNN that these types of government issues do not affect royal visits.

“As his Majesty the King said in his address to Congress it’s really a moment to step up and back and remind us that the relationship is bigger than an ambassador, a president, a duke, a secretary of state, and it’s those ties and those connections that stretch back in history and stretch forward,” the ambassador said.

“It’s true, constitutionally, for us the monarchy is above politics so we’re not discussing day to day policy on trips like this, we’re thinking about those deeper ties and why still, after 250 years, we’re family.”

As the prince and escorts paused to enjoy a farewell stop at the Mount Vernon Whiskey tasting, there was another subtle reminder that no matter how special the bond, even shared histories lead to different places.

In this case, the spelling of the word, “Whiskey,” which in the UK is spelt with an “e” if it comes from Ireland and no “e” if it comes from Scotland.

“Technically it’s either Scottish or Irish, so you’re going to have to try and work out whether you’re going to have to spell it differently to indicate it’s over here,” the duke mused. “You could replace the ‘I’ with a ‘u’,” he quipped.

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