A Prince Outranked by a Dog

It’s hard to believe that Prince Charles was ever twenty-one years old, but when he was that age in 1970, he and his 19 year old sister,Princess Anne, visited President Nixon. Nixon remarked at the time that a Prince of Wales visited America about once every 50 years: The first in 1860, the next one in 1919, and then in 1970.

 

In correspondences between Nixon and the White House staff before the visit, there was a light hearted moment as they wondered how to address the President’s Irish Setter, King Timahoe. The reply: During the Prince’s visit, the dog would be referred to only as Timahoe since it would be inappropriate for the Prince to be outranked by a dog.

King Timahoe got his name from a hamlet in County Kildare, Ireland where Nixon’s ancestors were from. The setter was a birthday present from Nixon’s staff in 1969, though staff members had first given Nixon a small model of an Irish setter to represent the puppy to come in a few weeks.

Nixon held off on naming the dog until he met him, explaining that he wanted to “judge his personality” but that it would “certainly be a good Irish name.”

Image of King Timahoe

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