Tatiana Schlossberg’s younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, shared that his parents, Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, currently live with their grandchildren, taking on daily responsibility for their care at their son-in-law’s residence.
At the same time, a new literary work delves into the deep connections that intertwine the historic Windsor and Kennedy dynasties. This book promises to reveal details and nuances of these surprising bonds.
- Important points to know about the ties between Windsor and Kennedy:
- A member of the British royal family took time to offer comfort to young JFK Jr. following President John F. Kennedy’s memorial service.
- PEOPLE magazine, in its cover issue this week, thoroughly explores the close relationships between the Windsor and Kennedy families.
- Jacqueline Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II demonstrated resilience in similar public roles, while Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy faced major challenges under intense media attention.
After President John F. Kennedy’s funeral, his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, witnessed an unusual scene at the White House: Prince Philip was on the floor, playing with his son, John F. Kennedy Jr.
JFK Jr. turned three years old on November 25, 1963, a date that coincided with his father’s burial, just three days after the assassination of the president, then 46 years old. Seeking brief relief from the public pain engulfing her family, Jackie, aged 34, took refuge in the royal apartments of the White House and there found the member of British royalty entertaining her young son.
Author Caroline Hallemann, in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE magazine in this week’s cover story, reports: “Here was a boy who had just lost his father and perhaps wasn’t even fully aware of what had happened, and Prince Philip, who also faced his own childhood tragedies, acted as a father would, deciding, ‘I’m just going to comfort this child.'”
“All formality – whether royal or political – disappeared, giving way to a moment of genuine human connection between these two families”, adds the author of “The Kennedys & the Windsors”, which is now available.
The new book details the unexpected confluences between the most famous American political dynasty and the British royal family, highlighting indisputable parallels in their trajectories.
If the kindness shown by Philip to young JFK Jr. served as an early indication of the bonds between the families, it was Jackie and Queen Elizabeth who eventually cemented them. In the early 1960s, one was a young first lady helping to usher in a new phase of optimism in the United States, while the other was a young monarch carrying the weight of an ancient institution.
Hallemann points out that “they enjoyed great proximity to power and exercised discreet diplomacy, but they did not have real political power.” However, both exerted considerable influence, reconciling motherhood with public obligations and becoming perennial symbols of their respective nations.
When Jackie Kennedy arrived at Buckingham Palace for her first meeting with the Queen in June 1961, during her husband’s presidency, she already had a long-standing fascination with royalty. Years earlier, as a budding journalist, he attended a press reception in Washington, where the then Princess Elizabeth was also present.
The relationship that developed between them was marked by mutual respect and understanding, with Jackie perceiving in the Queen someone who understood the unique pressures of public life and all its implications.
In a striking exchange, the monarch offered advice that would echo throughout both women’s lives, instructing Jackie to “distribute her energy and take care of herself when in the public spotlight,” as Hallemann reports.
Decades later, another pair of women, also linked to the Windsor and Kennedy families, would find themselves immersed in the same intensity of public attention.
While Jacqueline and the Queen learned to manage media exposure, their daughters-in-law, Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, faced significant difficulties with the impact of this visibility on their respective relationships with the future King Charles and JFK Jr.
“It was a challenge to integrate into these families,” says Hallemann about the enormous pressure. “There were rules and expectations both internal to the family and imposed by the outside world.”
The Princess of Wales always deeply admired the way Jackie balanced the demands of public life with maternal responsibilities. Hallemann claims that Diana saw the former first lady as “a true example to follow” for the way she dealt with fame while raising her children. This admiration may have been a factor in Diana’s decision to meet John in 1995, after he invited her to appear on the cover of his George magazine, although that invitation never came to fruition.
Despite mishaps with the press, Diana was ultimately able to direct the media’s relentless attention to support the causes she considered important, while Carolyn fought to regain control of her own narrative.
“She was completely overwhelmed and never found a way to deal with it,” Hallemann describes.
However, Diana and Carolyn transcended the role of mere wives of public figures, becoming style icons and cultural ideals of their generation, both before and after their unexpected deaths in the late 1990s.