By Sarah Mason and Kimberley Heatherington
FRONT ROYAL, Va. (OSV News) — “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
That has been the cry throughout Front Royal, a small town of 16,000 in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with a reputation as a sort of “Catholic Mecca,” since news of the royal visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla was finally announced.
But unlike 250 years ago, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was on the verge of breaking away from the British Empire to form the new United States of America, Front Royal’s citizens were jubilant in welcoming with American pride the British royals visiting their town April 30. Dubbed the Front Royal 250th Celebration, organizers invited guests to “join us as we celebrate 250 years of American history and our royal heritage with the United Kingdom.”
Public schools closed, private school children played hooky, homeschoolers showed up in droves, and people took off work. On that bright sunny day with its clear blue skies, thousands stood for almost four hours, in a line stretching over eight blocks, just to pass through security and wedge themselves into the crowd lining Main Street to view the monarchs arriving by royal motorcade.
Union Jacks flew beside the Stars and Stripes, and excited children pressed against the barricades to glimpse the king and queen that afternoon. A pair of young brothers came in homemade Revolutionary War costumes, one dressed as a British Redcoat, the other in American Continental Army blue. At least one little girl wore her princess costume and crown.
Front Royal’s Catholics told OSV News that they never expected such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to descend upon them. When the news of the royal visit came two prior, everyone thought it must be a joke. But it only took a few hours of local social media accounts flooding with images of the town’s announcement page — as well as a plethora of good-natured AI-generated images of the royals with local business owners — for residents to shift from “Is this for real?” to “This is so exciting!”
Front Royal’s biggest historical moment
Eric Jenislawski, a theology professor at nearby Christendom College, told OSV News this was “clearly the biggest thing to have ever happened in Front Royal.”
Among the Northern Virginia town’s other claims to fame are a bloody Civil War battle in 1862 and the Irish American Catholic crooner Bing Crosby’s 1949-50 fundraising appearances for the local baseball stadium now named after him.
Front Royal itself is known as a major Catholic center in Northern Virginia. It is not only home to Christendom, a Catholic liberal arts college with more than 500 students, but also Seton Home Study School, a program for Catholic homeschooling families; Human Life International, a Catholic pro-life organization; 13 local Catholic schools, both diocesan and independent; and two Catholic parishes, Roman and Ukrainian Catholic, boasting many large families.
Emily Janaro voiced a sentiment many in the Catholic community shared with OSV News: while they would have preferred a visit from Pope Leo XIV, having the King of Great Britain visit their small town — in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence from Great Britain — was still pretty amazing. Another Christendom student joked to OSV News that it was funny having the “Anglican pope” visiting such a Catholic community, referring to the British monarch’s titular role as the “supreme governor” of the Anglican Church of England.
A royal history of ‘shared values’ and heritage
Charles and Camilla’s time in Front Royal capped a April 27-30 journey that saw the king, over the course of his first official state visit to the U.S., appeal to the Christian faith, as he invoked “shared values” between the United Kingdom and the United States and called for peace around the globe during an address to a joint meeting of Congress.
During his speech before Congress, Charles noted a certain irony in the central role “my five-times great-grandfather, the third King George” played in the American story.
“Please rest assured I’m not here as part of some cunning rearguard action,” he joked in his speech.
Unlike his ancestor — immortalized in the musical “Hamilton” as vowing to his former colonies “You’ll be Back” — Charles is the third reigning British monarch after King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, his grandfather and mother, to make an official state visit to the U.S. The British royals’ final day in the U.S. on April 30 included a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, the nation’s premier military cemetery, and the 200,000 protected acres of Shenandoah National Park near Front Royal.
Dane Weber, another local Catholic, also observed the irony of the king visiting and celebrating with a place marking 250 years of cutting ties with the British Crown. But it was also an appropriate visit, he noted, given the strong alliance between the U.S. and the United Kingdom throughout much of their history since then.
A royal American ‘block party’ with King Charles III
With its long tradition of welcoming year-round visitors to the beauty of Skyline Drive, as well as annual festivals drawing crowds from the wider Northern Virginia region, Front Royal did not disappoint in its welcoming of the royal pair. Crowds were friendly, courteous, and proud to share the beauty of their town with both the king and queen, and also with the newly elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who was also present.
The bands and cheerleaders from Randolph Macon Academy, Warren County High School, and Skyline High School marched in a special parade to welcome King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Local musicians and dance groups performed for the British royals at the following “block party” in the town square. The king stayed and celebrated for about 45 minutes, thus concluding his four-day trip to the U.S. by visiting a little town in a state that began as the first permanent English colony in North America.
Tom McFadden, vice president of enrollment and student services at Christendom and a member of the county school board, told OSV News it was truly a monarchical day.
“The last time I saw British royalty was in 1982, when I saw Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle. The travel distance to see King Charles and Queen Camilla was much reduced this time around,” he told OSV News. “I spent this morning in front of the King of Kings in Eucharistic adoration in a small chapel at the end of Main Street in Front Royal — and then, just hours later, I spent time with the king of the United Kingdom.”
The king and the Eucharist
McFadden, who got to shake hands with Charles, calling it an “amazing thing,” noted that at the time he left the adoration chapel Jesus Christ — present body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist — was attended by “only a few devoted souls.” But it seemed most of the town turned out to see the British royals.
“It’s funny how celebrity draws people to them — and don’t get me wrong, it’s very cool to be a part of this amazing event — but the real Celebrity is within our reach every day,” he said, referring to Christ in the Eucharist. “Something to think about.”
But for some of Front Royals’ Catholics, that day was — in a real way — also an occasion to receive both kings for the very first time.
Father Daniel Gee, whose St. John the Baptist Catholic Church sits on the Main Street parade route, told OSV News the parish coincidentally had a first Communion Mass scheduled at 12 p.m. the same day. So it made the day these Catholics received Christ the King in their first Eucharist even more memorable.
St. John the Baptist’s parish rolls alone show how sizable the Catholic population of Front Royal is: The Arlington Catholic Herald reported that in 2023, nearly 1,000 new people registered with the parish compared to 2020, increasing parishioners 21% — from 4,559 to 5,552.
Kate Leonard, co-owner of a downtown shop dubbed The Catholic Coterie, and a Christendom graduate, told OSV News her niece was among those receiving first Communion at the St. John the Baptist, so she was juggling both an influx of store foot traffic and attendance at the special midday Mass.
A royal visit to a ‘very Catholic town’
While much of Front Royal’s Catholic population was once attributable to the draw of Christendom College, she said in recent years, the reputation of the wider Catholic community has drawn families for other reasons.
“Front Royal is obviously a very Catholic town,” said Leonard. “And we are a tourism-based town, so something like this is a huge boon for local vendors. I expect that for most of the vendors on Main Street, it will probably be their largest day that they’ve ever done.”
“For the most part,” she added, “everyone’s in really good spirits and the crowds are really fun, and everyone is just kind of excited to have a reason to celebrate. It’s all American bunting; it’s ‘God bless the USA’ — I mean that’s very much the vibe of the town. We’re here to welcome you as foreign dignitaries — but we’re also, ‘Go USA!’ for sure.”
Although their time together was brief, people widely agreed that the British royals visiting “the Royals,” as locals often refer to themselves, is a memory that they will hold for a very, very long time.
OSV News correspondent Sarah Mason reported from Front Royal, Virginia. OSV News correspondent Kimberley Heatherington writes from Virginia.
