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British monarch to mark Jamestown anniversary

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was due to start her first state visit to the US in 16 years yesterday to mark the 400th anniversary of the country's first permanent English settlement.

After first visiting Jamestown for the 350th anniversary in 1957, the queen was due to return to the Virginia town to mark the founding of a settlement that went from fraught beginnings to establish history's greatest superpower.

Elizabeth was due to start her six-day trip in the Virginia state capital Richmond, delivering a speech to a joint session of the state's legislature, which is the New World's oldest representative body.

The visit, which will also take in a White House state dinner with US President George W. Bush, marks the nations' shared history, as well as future partnerships in science, education and innovation, Buckingham Palace said.

The trip comes just weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were killed in the US' deadliest school shooting. The queen will pay tribute to the victims during her time in the eastern US state. Details are still being finalized, but a royal visit to the campus has been ruled out.

The queen, an avid horse racing fan, will also fulfill a lifelong ambition to watch the Kentucky Derby after the Virginia leg on May 5.

In Richmond yesterday, Elizabeth was due to be feted with a "Royal Welcome" in the town's neo-classical Capitol Square, featuring a showcase of Virginia music from blues to jazz, bluegrass to gospel.

"Considering the queen's a foreign alien, so to speak, she's well loved here in Virginia, where people remain pretty anglophile," retired corporate lawyer Forrest Morgan, 65, said.

Morgan now does voluntary work taking visitors around the site of the original Jamestown fort, just over an hour's drive from Richmond, which the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, are scheduled to tour today.

Prince Philip was yesterday also to inspect a replica of the Susan Constant, the largest of three ships that brought the original settlers, whose adventurous leader, Captain John Smith, now stands in statue by the fort.

The couple were to attend a lunch yesterday with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and 400 other guests, before visiting William and Mary College, the US' second-oldest university founded in 1693, in nearby Williamsburg.

After their day at the races, the royal couple fly to Washington and meet Bush and his wife Laura at the White House on Monday, the ceremonial climax of the queen's first state visit to the US since 1991.

Before returning home late on Tuesday, the royal couple are to tour NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington, visit the World War II National Memorial and give a return banquet for the Bushes at the British ambassador's residence.

Also see story:
Kentucky prepares for royal visit

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