Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz(Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) wasQueen of Great Britain and Irelandas the wife ofKing George IIIfrom their marriage on 8 September 1761 until her death in 1818. TheActs of Union 1800unifiedGreat BritainandIrelandinto theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As George's wife, she was alsoElectressofHanoveruntil becomingQueen of Hanoveron 12 October 1814. Charlotte was Britain's longest-servingqueen consort, serving for 57 years and 70 days.
Charlotte was born into the ruling family ofMecklenburg-Strelitz, aduchyin northern Germany. In 1760, the young and unmarried George III inherited the British throne. As Charlotte was a minor German princess with no interest in politics, the King considered her a suitable consort, and they married in 1761. The marriage lasted 57 years and produced 15 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood. They included two future British monarchs,George IVandWilliam IV; as well asCharlotte, Princess Royal, who becameQueen of Württemberg; andPrince Ernest Augustus, who becameKing of Hanover.
Charlotte was a patron of the arts and an amateurbotanistwho helped expandKew Gardens. She introduced theChristmas treeto Britain, decorating one for a Christmas party for children ofWindsorin 1800. She was distressed by her husband's bouts of physical and mental illness, which became permanent in later life. Charlotte was deeply shocked by the events of theFrench Revolutionand of the ensuingNapoleonic Warswhich threatened the safety and sovereignty of her homeland. Her eldest son, George, was appointedprince regentin 1811 due to the increasing severity of the King's illness. Charlotte died atKew Palacein November 1818, with several of her children at her side. George III died a little over a year later, probably unaware of his wife's death.
Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was born on 19 May 1744. She was the youngest daughter ofDuke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg, Prince of Mirow(1708–1752), and his wifePrincess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen(1713–1761).Mecklenburg-Strelitzwas a small north-German duchy in theHoly Roman Empire.
The children of Duke Charles were all born at the Unteres Schloss (Lower Castle) inMirow.According to diplomatic reports at the time of her engagement toGeorge IIIin 1761, Charlotte had received "a very mediocre education"and contemporary Britons includingElizabeth Montaguexpressed anxiety about the supposed provinciality of Charlotte's upbringing.Her parents hired notable individuals to tutor their children, among themGottlob Burchard GenzmerandFriderike Elisabeth von Grabow, known as "the female sappho."Charlotte received instruction in literature,botany,natural history, andlanguagesincluding French, Italian, and Latin. She was also taught traditional pursuits for upper-class girls, including embroidery, dancing, singing,household managementandreligion– the latter taught by apriest. Charlotte was also taught to play theharpsichordby composer Johann Georg Linike.The family lived a modest life at Mirow; only after her brotherAdolphus Fredericksucceeded to the ducal throne, in 1752, did Charlotte gain any experience of princely duties and of court life.
When George III succeeded to the throne ofGreat Britainupon the death of his grandfather,George II, he was 22 years old and unmarried. His mother,Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and his advisors were eager to have him settled in marriage.
Charlotte was not originally considered as a potential bride, but the Hanoverian Minister in London, Baron Philip Adolphus von Münchausen, suggested her as a candidate, likely due to the positive relations between Hanover and Mecklenburg-Strelitz.The 17-year-old Charlotte appealed as a prospective consort partly because she had been brought up in an insignificant north German duchy and, therefore, would probably have had no experience or interest in power politics or party intrigues. That proved to be the case; to make sure, George III instructed her shortly after their wedding "not to meddle", a precept she dutifully followed.
The King announced to his Council in July 1761, according to the usual form, his intention to wed the Princess, after which a party of escorts, led bythe Earl Harcourt, departed for Germany to bring Princess Charlotte to England. They reachedStrelitzon 14 August 1761, and were received the next day by Duke Adolphus Frederick IV, Charlotte's brother, at which time the marriage contract was signed by him on the one hand and Lord Harcourt on the other.Tragically, Charlotte's mother had died on 29 June, after giving encouragement to the betrothal following a correspondence with George III's mother, Princess Augusta.
Three days of public celebrations followed, and on 17 August 1761, Charlotte set out for Britain, accompanied by Adolphus Frederick and the British escort party, among them one of Charlotte's new Ladies of the Bedchamber,Elizabeth Hamilton, 1st Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon. On 22 August, they reachedCuxhaven, where a small fleet awaited to convey them to England. The voyage was extremely difficult; the party encountered three storms at sea and landed atHarwichonly on 7 September. They set out at once for London, spent that night inWitham, at the residence ofLord Abercorn, and arrived at 3:30 pm the next day atSt. James's Palacein London. They were received by the King and his family at the garden gate, which marked the first meeting of the bride and groom.
At 9:00 pm that same evening (8 September 1761), within six hours of her arrival, Charlotte was married to George III. The ceremony was performed at theChapel Royal, St. James's Palace, by thearchbishop of Canterbury,Thomas Secker.Only the royal family, the party who had travelled from Germany, and a handful of guests were present.George III and Charlotte's coronationwas held atWestminster Abbeya fortnight later on 22 September, after a brief honeymoon atRichmond Lodge.
Upon her wedding day, Charlotte spoke little English. However, she quickly learned the language, albeit speaking with a strong German accent. One observer commented, "She is timid at first but talks a lot, when she is among people she knows."
Less than a year after the marriage, on 12 August 1762, the Queen gave birth to her first child,George, Prince of Wales. In the course of their marriage, the couple became the parents of 15 children,all but two of whom (OctaviusandAlfred) survived into adulthood.
St James's Palacefunctioned as the official residence of the royal couple, but the King had recently purchased a nearby property,Buckingham House, located at the western end ofSt James's Park. More private and compact, the new property stood amid rolling parkland not far from St James's Palace. Around 1762, the King and Queen moved to this residence, which was originally intended as a private retreat. The Queen came to favour this residence, spending so much of her time there that it came to be known as The Queen's House. Indeed, in 1775, an Act of Parliament settled the property on Queen Charlotte in exchange for her rights toSomerset House.Most of the couple's 15 children were born in Buckingham House, although St James's Palace remained the official and ceremonial royal residence.
During her first years in Great Britain, Charlotte's strained relationship with her mother-in-law, Augusta, caused her difficulty in adapting to the life of the British court.Augusta interfered with Charlotte's efforts to establish social contacts by insisting on rigid court etiquette.Furthermore, Augusta appointed many of Charlotte's staff, among whom several were expected to report to Augusta about Charlotte's behaviour.Charlotte turned to her German companions for friends, notably her close confidanteJuliane von Schwellenberg.Charlotte's personal correspondence with her brotherCharles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. revealed the depth of her loneliness and of her frustration with the regulations of royal life.
The King enjoyed country pursuits and riding and preferred to keep his family's residence as much as possible in the then rural towns ofKewandRichmond. He favoured an informal and relaxed domestic life, to the dismay of some courtiers more accustomed to displays of grandeur and strict protocol.Lady Mary Cokewas indignant on hearing, in July 1769, that the King, the Queen, her visiting brotherPrince ErnestandLady Effinghamhad gone for a walk through Richmond by themselves without any servants: "I am not satisfied in my mind about the propriety of a Queen walking in town unattended."
From 1778, the royal family spent much of their time at a newly constructed residence, the Queen's Lodge at Windsor, oppositeWindsor Castle, inWindsor Great Park, where the King enjoyed hunting deer.The Queen was responsible for the interior decoration of their new residence, described by a friend of the royal family and diaristMary Delany: "The entrance into the first room was dazzling, all furnished with beautiful Indian paper, chairs covered with different embroideries of the liveliest colours, glasses, tables, sconces, in the best taste, the whole calculated to give the greatest cheerfulness to the place."
Charlotte treated her children's attendants with friendly warmth which is reflected in this note she wrote to her daughters' assistant governess, Mary Hamilton:
Charlotte did have some influence on political affairs through the King. Her influence was discreet and indirect, as demonstrated in the correspondence with her brother Charles. She used her closeness with George III to keep herself informed and to make recommendations for offices.Apparently her recommendations were not direct, as she on one occasion, in 1779, asked her brother Charles to burn her letter, because the King suspected that a person she had recently recommended for a post was the client of a woman who sold offices.Charlotte particularly interested herself in German issues. She took an interest in theWar of the Bavarian Succession(1778–1779), and it is possible that it was due to her efforts that the King supported British intervention in the continuing conflict betweenJoseph IIandCharles Theodore of Bavariain 1785.
Some contemporaries, includingCharlotte Papendiek, one of Charlotte's attendants, believed that George III first suffered from mental illness in 1765.However, the royal governess,Lady Charlotte Finchrecorded that the king was merely ill with a fever; unlike Mrs Papendiek, who was in July 1765, Lady Charlotte was present in the royal household at the time.Mrs Papendiek claimed in her memoirs that Princess Augusta tried to keep Charlotte unaware of the situation in order to establish herself as regent.The Regency Bill of 1765 stated that if the King should become permanently unable to rule, Charlotte was to act as regent until the Prince of Wales came of age.
George III's bout of physical and mental illness started in October 1788 and lasted until March 1789. Charlotte was deeply distressed by the change in her husband's behaviour. The writerFrances Burney, at that time one of the Queen's attendants, overheard her moaning to herself with "desponding sound": "What will become of me? What will become of me?"When the King collapsed one night, she refused to be left alone with him and successfully insisted that she be given her own bedroom. When the doctor,Richard Warren, was called, she was not informed and was not given the opportunity to speak with him about it. When told by the Prince of Wales that the King was to be removed to Kew, but that she should move to Queen's House or to Windsor, she successfully insisted that she accompany her spouse to Kew, telling her son "Where the king is,there I shall be."However, she and her daughters were taken to Kew separately from the King and lived secluded from him during his illness. They regularly visited him, but the visits tended to be uncomfortable, as he had a tendency to embrace them and refuse to let them go.
During the 1788 illness of the King, a conflict arose between the Queen and the Prince of Wales, who suspected one another of desiring to assume the regency should the illness of the King become permanent, resulting in him being declared unfit to rule. Charlotte suspected her son of a plan to have the King declared insane with the assistance of Doctor Warren, and to take over the regency.Prince George's followers, notably Sir Gilbert Ellis, in turn suspected the Queen of a plan to have the King declared sane with the assistance of DoctorFrancis Willisand Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt, so that he could have her appointed regent should he fall ill again, and then have him declared insane again and assume the regency.According to Doctor Warren, Doctor Willis had pressed him to declare the King sane on the orders of the Queen.
In the Regency Bill of 1789, the Prince of Wales was declared regent should the King become permanently insane, but it also placed the King himself, his court and minor children under the Queen's guardianship.The conflict around the regency led to serious discord between the Prince of Wales and his mother.In an argument he accused her of having sided with his enemies, while she called him the enemy of the King.Their conflict became public when she refused to invite him to the concert held in celebration of the recovery of the King, which created a scandal.During this period, Queen Charlotte was caricatured in satirical prints which depicted her as an unnatural mother and a creature of the Prime Minister.In January 1789The Timesaccused the Opposition of beginning "a most scurrilous attack on the queen, not only by private conversation, but through the medium of the prints in their interest".Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales finally reconciled, on her initiative, in March 1791.
As a result of the king's illness in 1788-89 and of the public attacks on her character, the Queen's personality altered: she developed a terrible temper and no longer enjoyed appearing in public, not even at the musical concerts she had so loved; and her relationships with her adult children became strained.From 1792 she found some relief from her worry about her husband by planning the gardens and decoration of a new residence for herself,Frogmore House, in Windsor Home Park.
When the king's mental health declined again in 1804, it caused a serious rupture in the royal marriage. Despite the entreaties of her daughters and of the king's physicians, Queen Charlotte slept in a separate bedroom, had her meals separate from the king, and avoided spending time alone with him.
Charlotte and her husband were music connoisseurs with German tastes, who gave special honour to German artists and composers.  They were passionate admirers of the music ofGeorge Frideric Handel.
In April 1764,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, arrived in Britain with his family as part of theirgrand tour of Europeand remained until July 1765.The Mozarts were summoned to court on 19 May and played before a limited circle from six to ten o'clock.Johann Christian Bach, eleventh son of the greatJohann Sebastian Bach, was then music-master to the Queen. He put difficult works of Handel, J. S. Bach, andCarl Friedrich Abelbefore the boy: he played them allat sight, to the amazement of those present.Afterwards, the young Mozart accompanied the Queen in anariawhich she sang, and played a solo work on the flute.On 29 October, the Mozarts were in London again, and were invited to court to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the King's accession. As a memento of the royal favour,Leopold Mozartpublished six sonatas composed by Wolfgang, known as Mozart'sOpus 3, that were dedicated to the Queen on 18 January 1765, a dedication she rewarded with a present of 50 guineas.
Queen Charlotte was an amateurbotanistwho took a great interest inKew Gardens. In an age of discovery, when such travellers and explorers asCaptain James CookandSir Joseph Bankswere constantly bringing home new species and varieties of plants, she ensured that the collections were greatly enriched and expanded.Her interest in botany led to the South African flower, the bird of paradise, being namedStrelitzia reginaein her honour.
Queen Charlotte has also been credited with introducing theChristmas treeto Britain and its colonies.Initially, Charlotte decorated a singleyewbranch, a common Christmas tradition in her native Mecklenburg-Strelitz, to celebrate Christmas with members of the royal family and the royal household.She decorated the branch with the assistance of her ladies-in-waiting and then had the court gather to sing carols and distribute gifts.In December 1800, Queen Charlotte set up the first known English Christmas tree atQueen's Lodge, Windsor.That year, she held a large Christmas party for the children of all the families inWindsorand placed a whole tree in the drawing-room, decorated with tinsel, glass,baublesand fruits.John Watkins, who attended the Christmas party, described the tree in his biography of the Queen: "from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys, most tastefully arranged; the whole illuminated by small wax candles. After the company had walked round and admired the tree, each child obtained a portion of the sweets it bore, together with a toy, and then all returned home quite delighted."The practice of decorating a tree became popular among the British nobility andgentry, and later spread to the colonies.
Among the royal couple's favoured craftsmen and artists were the cabinetmakerWilliam Vile, silversmithThomas Heming, the landscape designerCapability Brown, and the German painterJohann Zoffany, who frequently painted the King and Queen and their children in charmingly informal scenes, such as a portrait of Queen Charlotte and her children as she sat at her dressing table.In 1788, the royal couple visited the Worcester Porcelain Factory (founded in 1751, and later to be known asRoyal Worcester), where Queen Charlotte ordered a porcelain service that was later renamed "Royal Lily" in her honour. Another well-known porcelain service designed and named in her honour was the "Queen Charlotte" pattern.
The Queen founded orphanages and, in 1809, became the patron (providing new funding) of the General Lying-in Hospital, a hospital for expectant mothers. It was subsequently renamed as the Queen's Hospital, and is today theQueen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital.
Up until 1788, portraits of Charlotte often depict her in maternal poses with her children, and she looks young and contented;however, that year, her husband fell seriously ill and became temporarily insane. It is now thought that the King hadporphyria,thoughbipolar disorderhas also been named as another possible underlying cause for his condition.SirThomas Lawrence's portrait of Charlotte at this time marks a transition point, after which she looks much older in her portraits; the assistant keeper of Charlotte's wardrobe,Charlotte Papendiek, wrote that the Queen was "much changed, her hair quite grey".
TheFrench Revolutionof 1789 probably added to the strain that Charlotte felt.She had maintained a close relationship with QueenMarie Antoinetteof France. Charlotte was 11 years older than Marie Antoinette, yet they shared many interests, such as their love of music and the arts, about which they were both enthusiastic. Never meeting face to face, they confined their friendship to pen and paper. Marie Antoinette confided in Charlotte upon the outbreak of the French Revolution. Charlotte had organized apartments to be prepared and ready for the refugee royal family of France to occupy.She was greatly distraught when she heard the news that the King and Queen of France had been executed.
After the onset of his permanent madness in 1811, George III was placed under the guardianship of his wife in accordance with theRegency Bill of 1789.She could not bring herself to visit him very often, due to his erratic behaviour and occasional violent reactions. It is believed she did not visit him again after June 1812. However, Charlotte remained supportive of her spouse as his illness worsened in old age. While her son, thePrince Regent, wielded the royal power, she was her spouse's legal guardian from 1811 until her death in 1818. Due to the extent of the King's illness, he was incapable of knowing or understanding that she had died.
During the Regency of her son, Queen Charlotte continued to fill her role as first lady in royal representation because of the estrangement of the Prince Regent andhis spouse.As such, she functioned as the hostess by the side of her son at official receptions, such as thefestivities given in Londonto celebrate the defeat of EmperorNapoleonin 1814.She also supervised the upbringing of her granddaughter,Princess Charlotte of Wales.During her last years, she was met with a growing lack of popularity and was sometimes subjected to demonstrations.After having attended a reception in London on 29 April 1817, she was jeered by a crowd. She told the crowd that it was upsetting to be treated like that after such long service.
The Queen died in the presence of her eldest son, the Prince Regent, who was holding her hand as she sat in an armchair at the family's country retreat,Dutch Housein Surrey (now known asKew Palace).She was buried atSt George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.Her husband died just over a year later. She is the longest-serving female consort and second-longest-serving consort in British history (afterPrince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), having served as such from her marriage (on 8 September 1761) to her death (17 November 1818), a total of 57 years and 70 days.
On the day before her death, the Queen dictated her will to her husband's secretary,Sir Herbert Taylor, appointing him andLord Ardenas her executors; at her death, her personal estate was valued at less than £140,000 (equivalent to £12,300,000 in 2023), with her jewels accounting for the greater portion of her assets.In her will, proven atDoctor's Commonson 8 January 1819, the Queen bequeathed her husband the jewels she had received from him, unless he remained in his state of insanity, in which case the jewels were to become an heirloom of the House of Hanover. Other jewels, including some gifted to Charlotte bythe Nawab of Arcot, were to be evenly distributed among her surviving daughters. The furnishings and fixtures at the royal residence at Frogmore, along with "live and dead stock...on the estates", were bequeathed to her daughterAugusta Sophiaalong with the Frogmore property, unless its maintenance would prove too expensive for her daughter, in which case it was to revert to the Crown. Her daughterSophiainherited theRoyal Lodge.Certain personal assets that the Queen had brought from Mecklenburg-Strelitz were to revert to the senior branch of that dynasty, while the remainder of her assets, including her books, linen, art objects and china, were to be evenly divided among her surviving daughters.
At the Queen's death, the Prince Regent claimed Charlotte's jewels, and on his death, they were in turn claimed by his heir,William IV. On William's death, Charlotte's bequest then sparked a protracted dispute between her granddaughterQueen Victoria, who claimed the jewels as the property of the British Crown, and Charlotte's now eldest-surviving sonErnest Augustus, King of Hanover, who claimed the jewels by right of being the most senior male member of theHouse of Hanover. The dispute would not be resolved in Ernest's lifetime. Eventually in 1858, over twenty years after the death of William IV and nearly forty years after Charlotte's death, the matter was decided in favour of Ernest's sonGeorge, upon which Victoria had the jewels given into the custody of the Hanoverian ambassador.
The rest of Charlotte's property was sold at auction from May to August 1819. Her clothes, furniture, and even her snuff were sold byChristie's.It is highly unlikely that her husband ever knew of her death; he died blind, deaf, lame and insane 14 months later.
Places named after Charlotte include theQueen Charlotte Islands(now known asHaida Gwaii) inBritish Columbia, Canada, andQueen Charlotte City(now known asDaajing Giids) on Haida Gwaii;Queen Charlotte Sound(not far from the Haida Gwaii Islands);Queen Charlotte Channel(nearVancouver, Canada); Queen Charlotte Bay in West Falkland;Queen Charlotte Sound, South Island, New Zealand;several fortifications, includingFort Charlotte, Saint Vincent;Charlottesville, Virginia;Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island;Charlotte, North Carolina;Mecklenburg County, North Carolina;Mecklenburg County, Virginia;Charlotte County, Virginia;Charlotte County, Florida;Port Charlotte, Florida;Charlotte Harbor, Florida; andCharlotte, Vermont. The proposedNorth American coloniesofVandaliaandCharlotinawere also named for her.In Tonga, the royal family adopted the name Sālote (the Tongan version of Charlotte) in her honour, and notable individuals includedSālote LupepauʻuandSālote Tupou III.
Charlotte's provision of funding to the General Lying-in Hospital in London prevented its closure; today it is namedQueen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, and is an acknowledged centre of excellence amongst maternity hospitals. A large copy of theAllan Ramsayportrait of Queen Charlotte hangs in the main lobby of the hospital.TheQueen Charlotte's Ball, an annual debutante ball that originally funded the hospital, is named after her.
A lead statue probably of Queen Charlotte, dating toc.1775, stands onQueen SquareinBloomsbury, London,and there are two statues of her inCharlotte, North Carolina: atCharlotte Douglas International Airportand at the International Trade Center.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, was chartered in 1766 asQueen's College, in reference to Queen Charlotte.It was renamed in 1825 in honour ofHenry Rutgers, a Revolutionary War officer and college benefactor. Its oldest extant building,Old Queen's(built 1809–1823), and the city block that forms the historic core of the university,Queen's Campus, retain their original names.
Queen Charlotte was played byFrances Whitein the 1979 television seriesPrince Regent, byHelen Mirrenin the 1994 filmThe Madness of King George,byGolda Rosheuvelin the 2020Netflix originalseriesBridgerton,and byIndia Amarteifioin her younger years and Rosheuvel, in her older years, inQueen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.
Strelitzia, a genus of flowering plants native to South Africa that has become ubiquitous in warm-weather regions worldwide, is named for Charlotte's native Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Theroyal coat of arms of the United Kingdomare impaled with her father's arms as aDuke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The arms were: Quarterly of six, 1st, Or, a buffalo's head cabossed Sable, armed and ringed Argent, crowned and langued Gules (Mecklenburg); 2nd, Azure, a griffin segreant Or (Rostock); 3rd, Per fess, in chief Azure, a griffin segreant Or, and in the base Vert, a bordure Argent (Principality of Schwerin); 4th, Gules, a cross patée Argent crowned Or (Ratzeburg); 5th, Gules, a dexter arm Argent issuant from clouds in sinister flank and holding a finger ring Or (County of Schwerin); 6th, Or, a buffalo's head Sable, armed Argent, crowned and langued Gules (Wenden); Overall an inescutcheon, per fess Gules and Or (Stargard).
The Queen's arms changed twice to mirror the changes in her husband's arms, once in 1801 and then again in 1816. Afunerary hatchmentdisplaying the Queen's fullcoat of arms, painted in 1818, is on display atKew Palace.
Claims that Queen Charlotte may have had partialAfricanancestry first emerged inRacial Mixture as the Basic Principle of Lifepublished in 1929 by German historian, Brunold Springer, who challenged her Thomas Gainsborough portrait as inaccurate.Based on her alternative portrait byAllan Ramsayand contemporary descriptions of her appearance, Springer concluded that Charlotte's "broad nostrils and heavy lips" must point to African heritage. Jamaican-American amateur historianJ. A. Rogersagreed with Springer in his 1940 bookSex and Race: Volume I,where he concluded that Queen Charlotte must be "biracial"or "black".
Proponents of the African ancestry claim also hold to a literal interpretation ofBaron Stockmar's diary, in which he described Charlotte as "small and crooked, with a realMulattoface". Stockmar, who served as personal physician to the Queen's grandson-in-lawLeopold I of Belgium, arrived at court just two years before Charlotte's death in 1816. His descriptions of Charlotte's children in this same diary are equally unflattering.
In 1997, Mario de Valdes y Cocom, a genealogist and self-described "independent researcher",popularized and expanded on earlier arguments in an article forPBSFrontline,which has since been cited as the main source by a number of articles on the topic.Valdes also seized on Charlotte's 1761Allan Ramsayportrait as evidence of African ancestry, citing the Queen's "unmistakable African appearance" and "negroidphysiogomy"  [sic].Valdes claimed that Charlotte had inherited these features from one of her distant ancestors,Madragana(bornc.1230), a mistress of KingAfonso III of Portugal(c.1210– 1279).His conclusion is based on various historical sources that describe Madragana as eitherMoorishorMozarab,which Valdes erroneously interpreted to mean that she was black.
Although popular among the general public, the claims are rejected by most scholars.Aside from Stockmar's jab at her appearance shortly before her death, Charlotte was never referred to as having any specifically African physical features, let alone ancestry, during her lifetime. Furthermore, her portraiture was not atypical for her time, and painted portraits in general should not be considered reliable evidence of a sitter's true appearance.The use of the term "Moor" as a racial identifier for Charlotte's ancestorMadraganais also inconclusive as during the Middle Ages the term was not used to describe race but religious affiliation.Regardless, Madragana was more likely an IberianMozarab,and any genetic contribution from an ancestor fifteen generations removed would be so diluted as to have a negligible effect on her appearance.HistorianAndrew Robertsdescribes the claims as "utter rubbish", and attributes its public popularity to a hesitancy among historians to openly address it due to its "cultural cringefactor".
In 2017, following the announcement of the engagement ofPrince HarryandMeghan Markle, a number of news articles were published promoting the claims.David Buck, aBuckingham Palacespokesperson, was quoted by theBoston Globeas saying: "This has been rumoured for years and years. It is a matter of history, and frankly, we've got far more important things to talk about."In the 2023NetflixseriesQueen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,India Amarteifiowas cast as a mixed-race Charlotte.
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