Hamilton (Bermuda) (AFP) - King Charles III spent a day in the British island territory of Bermuda on Friday after a high-stakes visit to the United States where he sought to heal strained ties between Washington and London.

The monarch greeted a line of schoolchildren, pausing to chat with them, on the steps of the whitewashed St. Peter’s Church in St. George’s, the Atlantic Ocean territory’s first English settlement.

“Thank you for coming,” said one crowd member who held a miniature Union Jack flag on the first full day of the two-day stop.

“Get home safe,” said another member of the hundreds-strong crowd gathered in King’s Square.

One well-wisher wore a plastic crown speckled with imitation jewels as she filmed the gathering on her cell phone after a 21-gun salute.

Charles received a Royal Salute and the Royal Bermuda Regiment’s band played the national anthem before setting a more relaxed tone with Bob Marley and the Wailers’ song “Jamming.”

In Sandys Parish, the royal party was treated to dances by Gombeys – traditional dancers who maintain a folklore tradition with African, Caribbean and Native American influences.

They dance in troupes, each one with slightly differing riffs on their colorful costumes, defined by towering headdresses usually topped with peacock feathers, and capes often adorned with more feathers.

Their outfits also featured bells symbolizing the chains that bound enslaved people, and tiny mirrors to ward off evil spirits.

They also wear painted masks, a tradition rooted in slavery when slaves were forbidden from public dancing, forcing them to hide their identities.

While there, Charles also took in a museum exhibit on the transatlantic slave trade.

The island stop – the first visit by Charles to a British overseas territory as sovereign – comes after a packed US itinerary for the king and Queen Camilla, who did not make the trip to Bermuda.

- Trump’s ‘greatest king’ -

The four-day US visit was largely seen as a success, with President Donald Trump serving as a solicitous host who honored the royal couple with a white-tie banquet at the White House.

“He’s a great king – the greatest king, in my book,” Trump told reporters as they said farewell.

Soon after, Trump announced he was removing tariffs on Scottish whisky “in honor” of Charles and Camilla.

“The King and Queen got me to do something that nobody else was able to do, without hardly even asking!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

With the US trip concluded, the royals thanked Americans for “the warmth of your welcome” throughout the couple’s first US trip as king and queen.

“Until the next time… God Bless America,” they posted on X.

The centerpiece of the trip was Charles’s speech Tuesday to the US Congress, the first by a British monarch since Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.

The address was warmly received, even as Charles ranged over subjects from climate change and the need for restraints on presidential power to the importance of NATO and defense of Ukraine – sensitive issues for Trump’s ruling Republicans.

The 77-year-old king skirted around tensions between Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Britain’s refusal to join the war against Iran, insisting the partnership between the two countries was “born out of dispute, but no less strong for it.”

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