Saturday 10 September 2022 02:04 AM Biden's Irish Catholic mom who hated English told him NOT to bow to Queen when ... trends now
Joe Biden's mother is said to have hated the English so much that she told him not to bow down to the Queen ahead of his first meeting with her.
President Biden first met the late monarch when he was a young senator in 1982, however just as he was leaving for the airport to fly to the UK, he recalled in a 2013 speech, how his mother phoned him.
'Joey, be polite but do not kiss her ring,' Biden told his audience to laughter. 'Swear to God.'
Biden also repeated his mother's concern about showing undue deference to the Queen in his autobiography, Promises to Keep, this time recalling: 'When I told my mother I was going to have an audience with the Queen of England, the first thing she said was: "Don't you bow down to her."
He went on: '"Remember Joey," she'd say, "you're a Biden. Nobody is better than you. You’re not better than anybody else, but nobody is any better than you."'
To bow or curtsy was not a mandatory requirement when visiting the Queen, however it was the traditional way to greet her.
Joe Biden discussed how much his mother Catherine Finnegan (both pictured in 2008), known as Jean, 'hated the English' and told him never to bow down to the Queen or 'kiss her ring'
In another anecdote, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, known to the family as Jean, was said to have hated England so much that she chose to sleep on the floor rather than in a bed where the Queen once stayed, according to a book.
Author and British TV script writer Georgia Pritchett was invited to meet Biden, then vice president, at the White House while carrying out research for the American comedy series Veep.
She recalled in her autobiography My Mess Is a Bit of a Life, published earlier this year, how Biden was initially speaking about Ukraine, from where he had just returned, but was advised to switch topics.
Noting that Pritchett was British, he discussed how much his mother 'hated the English', telling her she had written 'hundreds' of poems on the matter.
Ms Pritchett wrote: 'He went off to find them and returned with hundreds of poems describing how God must smite the English and rain blood on our heads.'
Despite her apparent hatred of the English, Biden once compared his mother to the Queen after meeting her at Windsor Castle (pictured) in June last year
He went on to recollect the time his mother, who was of Irish descent, travelled to the UK and spent a night in a hotel where she was told the Queen had once visited.
Referring to the hotel stay, Ms Pritchett wrote: 'She was so appalled that she slept on the floor all night, rather than risk sleeping on a bed that the Queen had slept on.'
She added: 'I admire anyone whose principles come between them and a comfy bed.'
However, despite his mother's apparent hatred of the English, Biden once compared her to the Queen after meeting the Monarch at Windsor Castle in June last year.
The president said before boarding Air Force One: 'I don't think [the Queen] would be insulted but she reminded me of my mother, the look of her and just the generosity.'
Jean Biden was a devout Catholic mother-of-four who raised the future president in Pennsylvania and helped him overcome his childhood stutter.
Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Joe Biden attend the president's ceremonial welcome at Windsor Castle in June last year
She died in 2010, aged 92, having had what Biden has described as a ‘profound’ and ‘formidable’ influence on him. She is still frequently quoted by the president in his political speeches.
She joined him on the campaign trail as he sought election to the Senate and supporting him after his first wife and daughter died in a car crash.
Biden has said his mother was always quick to remind him his success was 'because of others' and taught him to set his own standards 'based on character alone.'
When Biden was mocked at the grammar school he attended which was run by nuns, one of them had once mocked his stuttering. His mother, at just 5ft 1in, told the nun: 'If you ever speak to my son like that again, I'll come back and rip that bonnet off your head', according to his autobiography.
His mother joined him on the campaign trail when he ran for Senate, despite believing he would ruin his reputation as a lawyer by running for election, and stood next to him when he was Barack Obama's running mate.
Jean lived out her final days in a converted garage on the Biden property after she asked her son to sell her house and build her an apartment when her husband died in 2002.
Biden is reported to only be about five-eighths Irish, but is known for playing up his Irish heritage - despite the fact he has a sizable number of English ancestors too.
The White House hasn’t commented on his mother’s reported antipathy towards ‘the English’ but Biden has previously admitted that old prejudices die hard among his Irish family members.
His Irish ancestors left for America at the height of the great famine in the 1840s and 1850s, when the devastating effects of potato blight were exacerbated by British government economic policy.
He claims that he overcame a stutter that blighted his childhood by reciting Irish poetry to his bedroom mirror.
And he once wrote a letter in which he described himself as a descendant of an 'Irish American family that imbued in him a sense of pride that spoke of both continents'.
The president has even quoted Irish poets in speeches, raising eyebrows with his reference to W B Yeats' famed final line in Easter 1916, which describes the aftermath of the Easter Rising
