Duke of Sussex will join royal welcome for Trump

THE Duke of Sussex will join the Queen as she hosts a lunch for Donald Trump at Buckingham Palace on the US president’s first state visit next month.

The Duchess of Sussex is currently on maternity leave and will therefore avoid a potentially awkward encounter with Mr Trump, whom she has previously described as “misogynistic” and “divisive”.

In 2016, the Duchess, who gave birth to Archie Harrison Mountbattenwindsor on May 6, said she was backing Hillary Clinton in the presidential race because she did not want “that kind of world that (Trump) was painting”.

Mr Trump might also be advised not to mention Diana, Princess of Wales, whom he once suggested he could have slept with.

The private lunch will take place shortly after Mr Trump’s arrival on Monday June 3, following an official welcome by the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

The younger royals were expected to play a part in the three-day visit after it emerged that the president planned to bring four of his five children with him.

Palace sources confirmed that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will attend a state banquet hosted by the Queen during his first evening in London.

The white-tie dinner will be attended by some 150 royals, politicians, advisers and other guests who will mingle in Buckingham Palace’s ballroom.

The full itinerary for the visit, released by Buckingham Palace yesterday, reveals that the Prince of Wales will share official duties with the Queen as he increasingly assumes greater responsibility to support his 93-year-old mother, as he prepares to one day be king.

He will jointly inspect a Guard of Honour with the president and will later host Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, for tea at Clarence House.

The following day, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will attend a dinner hosted by the US ambassador on behalf of the Queen. They will then join the Queen and the Trumps on June 5 for a D-day 75th anniversary celebration in Southsea, Portsmouth.

The Prince’s heavy involvement in the state visit is in marked contrast to Mr Trump’s first official visit to the UK last July, when the pair did not even meet.

It will be seen as a clear sign of his readiness to assume the throne and a demonstration that he is prepared to put personal opinions on matters such as climate change to one side as he prioritises the monarchy.

The visit is expected to attract up to a million protesters, which will require one of the biggest policing operations undertaken in the capital.

But the absence of any public outdoor events will likely avoid potentially confrontational scenes.

 Princess Charlotte, who turned four on May 2, is to join her older brother, Prince George, at his school – Thomas’s Battersea in south-west London – in September, Kensington Palace has said. Simon O’malley, the headmaster, said: “We are greatly looking forward to welcoming her and all of our new pupils to the school.”