Who was Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte, and was she Britain’s first black queen?

Subject of popular new Netflix show sang with Mozart and introduced the Christmas tree to Britain, but rumours about her race divide the art world

Queen Charlotte is portrayed by British actress India Amarteifio in the hit Netflix show. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Netflix

As the Bridgerton spin-off Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story attracts audiences by delving into the life of the monarch, played by British actress India Amarteifio, interest in the real woman who inspired the show has been piqued.

Queen Charlotte secured her place in history largely thanks to her marriage to King George III, whose mental health, erratic decision making and questionable fitness to rule arguably contributed to America declaring independence from Britain.

However, King Charles III’s great-great-great-great-great grandmother achieved much in her life, rising from a non-English speaking aristocrat from a small Duchy in Cornwall to become queen of the-then largest empire in the world…

Queen Charlotte’s early life and marriage

The future queen of England was born Sophia Charlotte on May 19, 1744 in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany.

The youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg, Prince of Mirow and his wife Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen, she was raised in the Lower Castle in Mirow and privately tutored.

Charlotte was 17 when George III succeeded to the British throne at the age of 22.

As he was not married, finding the new king a suitable wife became the number one priority and Charlotte was chosen.

She arrived in Britain on September 7, 1761 and met her future husband for the first time the following day at 3.30pm. By 9pm that evening, she was married to King George III.

Family life in England

Charlotte was the first queen to live at Buckingham Palace, although at the time it was a private residence with the royal residence St James’s Palace nearby.

George bought Buckingham Palace in 1761 in anticipation of his marriage, and it became known as The Queen’s House, named for Charlotte.

On her wedding day she did not speak English, but soon learnt the language, and she and King George would go on to have 15 children, 13 of which survived to adulthood, including King George IV, King William IV, Charlotte, Princess Royal and Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh.

The family would spend a lot of time at the Queen’s Lodge in Windsor, opposite the castle, which they had built so the king could enjoy hunting deer in Windsor Great Park.

Influence on art and popular culture

The queen stayed busy by working alongside designers and architects on the interior decoration of the many royal properties. While she tended to stay out of politics, she became a renowned patron of the arts.

Staying true to her German roots, particularly when it came to music, Charlotte employed Johann Sebastian Bach’s son Johann Christian Bach as her music-master.

In 1764, she invited the then-eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to play for her and the king. He performed works by Handel, Bach and Abel for the assembled courtiers. She then accompanied him, both by singing an aria and playing the flute.

The famous botanical gardens at Kew in southwest London, whose history dates back to 1299, also found a champion in the queen who was an avid amateur botanist and revelled in the natural treasures British explorers including Captain James Cook brought back from their travels.

While Queen Victoria is credited with popularising the Christmas tree in Britain, through the influence of her German husband, Prince Albert, it was actually Charlotte who first introduced the tradition to Britain at a Christmas party at Queen’s Lodge in 1800.

Her philanthropy included founding orphanages, and in 1809 she became the patron of the London hospital, which today is still called Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital.

Was Queen Charlotte Britain’s first black Queen?

Art historians are divided on Charlotte’s race, with most evidence taken from portraits of her painted both during her reign and after her death.

The theory that Charlotte was black or biracial gained public prominence in 1997 when historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom put forward the argument in an episode of the American documentary series, PBS Frontline.

Valdes said that Charlotte “was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese royal house.”

“Sir Allan Ramsay was the artist responsible for the majority of the paintings of the queen, and his representations of her were the most decidedly African of all her portraits. Ramsay's anti-slavery sentiments were well known,” he said.

However, Valdes’s theory has been called into question by other art historians, including Desmond Philip Shawe-Taylor, CVO Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures from 2005 to 2020, who told The Guardian: “I can't see it to be honest. We've got a version of the same portrait. I look at it pretty often and it's never occurred to me that she's got African features of any kind. It sounds like the ancestry is there and it's not impossible it was reflected in her features, but I can't see it.”

Adding of the caricatures of Queen Charlotte displayed at the British Museum. "None of them shows her as African, and you'd suspect they would if she was visibly of African descent. You'd expect they would have a field day if she was.”