Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Morocco, her one and only to the Kingdom back on October 27, 1980, was determined as the most difficult state visit amid the British Monarch’s tour at the time.
The three days trip, later dubbed the “tour from hell,” was the Queen’s first and last visit to the North African country where she was received, along with her husband Prince Philip and her staff, by the Late King Hassan II.
The Moroccan King’s “special” greeting made the headlines of several British newspapers at the time. The Monarch was notoriously tardy keeping the British Queen and King waiting for him in the car for 30 minutes, leading to a bad start to the visit, according to Richard Kay, Editor at Large in the Daily Mail.
Some observers and newspapers explained afterward that the Queen was absolutely furious with the wait, especially since she had a punctual agenda to follow while everything else was behind schedule, meaning her appointments and the people she was about to meet in the next few days will keep waiting as well.
At a party Elizabeth II attended in the desert, the Late King had his guest waiting in the sun until 5 p.m to handle a pressing matter in his air-conditioned caravan, according to the British royal writer and journalist, Robert Hardman.
In addition, the Moroccan Monarch invited her to a state banquet, but the Queen found out when she arrived that the palace was closed and that no one is there. She had to wait almost an hour for her host to arrive.
Furthermore, and on the road to Marrakesh, precisely to the Atlas Mountains, King Hassan II made the Queen change cars seven times.
He also didn’t go along with the schedule, switched venues, and changed nearly the whole trip program. The acts were related to the King being paranoid, especially after his multiple assassination attempts.
The program was supposed to include the Queen’s visit to a British-funded Leonard Cheshire Center for the disabled but the Moroccan King canceled it and tried to bring her back to the palace, which triggered Elizabeth’s patience by refusing the King’s decision and asking him to stop the car so she could go there by herself, accompanied by her security staff.
The British newspapers didn’t spare the “Moroccan hospitality” from making the headlines once the trip ended. “Queen gets ‘snub’ by Arab King,” Edward Vale titled his 1980 article, adding in the details of the piece that “The Queen received an astonishing insult from Morocco’s King.”
On October 30, 1980, Daily Mirror published an article named “King of H ash who snubbed the Queen,” in which Andrew Sharp, the British journalist, reported that “In his eyes (King Hassan II eyes), he was doing a great favor by even receiving her (Queen Elizabeth II) in public.”
Despite what everyone thought at the time, Queen Elizabeth II sent a letter expressing that they “have been especially touched by the way in which your Majesty took such a personal interest in our program.” However, it remained her first and last trip to the Kingdom in the 96 years she lived.
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