By Jack Royston

Copyright newsweek

President Donald Trump told journalists being hosted for a state visit at Windsor Castle was a unique honor—but the history may be slightly more complicated than that.Trump touched down at London Stansted Airport on Tuesday evening and has a day of pomp and pageantry in store on Wednesday.However, talk has turned to whether he was right to suggest he is the first U.S. president to be hosted at Windsor Castle for a state visit.The answer is complicated but there is certainly some truth to the suggestion.What Donald Trump Said About Windsor State VisitQuoted by The Associated Press, Trump said on Tuesday: “Well, my relationship is very good with the U.K. and Charles as, you know, who’s now king, is my friend and it’s the first time this has ever happened where somebody was honored twice. So it’s a great honor. And this was at Windsor. They’ve never used Windsor Castle for this before.”They use Buckingham Palace and I don’t want to say one is better than the other, but they say Windsor Castle is the ultimate, right? So it’s going to be nice. But basically I’m there also on trade.””The trip to the U.K. is going to be incredible,” Trump said on Sunday. “They’ve never done this before, twice honored. And that’s because we had non-consecutive terms, you know that, you probably know. So we’ll see. But this is the first time it’s ever happened.”And Windsor is supposed to be amazing. They’ve never used Windsor, they’ve never had Windsor for this…and they’re going to be doing Windsor Castle. It’s going to be very exciting.”Ronald Reagan’s Visit to WindsorIn fact, Ronald Reagan was the first U.S. president to stay overnight at Windsor Castle, on the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1982, according to the biography The Queen, by Ben Pimlott.”President Reagan and his wife visited Britain, and became the first American presidential couple to stay at Windsor Castle,” Pimlott wrote. “The aim was to buttress Reagan’s ideological sympathy for Mrs Thatcher with a personal relationship between the elderly, not overly-involved, Californian monarch and the British one.”It seemed to work. The Reagans, sentimental to a falt—though also with an eye to American public opinion—were delighted to be royal guests. The President let it be known that he found the British Head of State ‘charming, down-to-earth’.”Ingrid Seward, author of royal biography My Mother and I, told Newsweek: “Reagan did stay at Windsor Castle.”And Reagan, who at the time was supporting British military action in the Falklands War, was given many of the same bells and whistles Trump will get, including a State Banquet.Reagan’s trip has been described as a state visit in a number of places, but Queen Elizabeth II’s spokesperson Dickie Arbiter told Newsweek that is not correct.”He stayed overnight but it wasn’t a state visit,” he said. “The late queen did push the boat out for him because she liked him because they had horses in common.”There have only been four proper state visits and Trump’s had two of them. Bush had one, George W. that is, and Obama had the other. He came on another visit but that wasn’t state, that was official.”Newsweek confirmed Reagan’s was not a state visit with the palace.President Joe Biden and Emmanuel MacronElizabeth and Charles both hosted former President Joe Biden at Windsor and those who watched will recognize elements of the choreography today in Windsor with Trump. However, neither of Biden’s trips were officially state visits.Trump may be the first American but he is not the first world leader to be hosted for a state visit in Windsor. As recently as July French President Emmanuel Macron was given much of the same treatment the U.S. president will get, including a carriage procession.Also, the predominant reason for this state visit being in Windsor is that reservicing works at Buckingham Palace have ruled out London.Trump is right to say his visit is historic, however, in that no U.S. president has ever undertaken two state visits to Britain before.However, the additional suggestion that Windsor is “the ultimate” may seem unusual to many Brits who are used to Buckingham Palace being the center of the monarchy.In part, the confusion over whether or not Trump was right may be a product of his imprecise use of language, saying “they’ve never used Windsor Castle for this before” without clarifying that “this” meant a state visit specifically.In a sense, the saga is classic Trump, ramping up details as evidence of his own specialness.However, underneath that public bravado there is some truth in the fact that Britain has also characterized the visit that way, with the specific intention of appealing to Trump’s ego in the hope of securing a better trade deal.Starmer presented King Charles’ invitation to Trump in the Oval Office in February when he said: “This has never happened before. It’s so incredible, it will be historic.”Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We’d love to hear from you.