“Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” is the first series in the franchise to focus solely on the real-life monarch.
The new Netflix spin-off, which is streaming now on the platform, follows the life of Queen Charlotte after she gets married to King George III, an 18th-century monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Like in the main “Bridgerton” series, Queen Charlotte is portrayed by two Black actors: Golda Rosheuvel, who portrays the character in the main series, and India Amarteifio.
Rosheuvel previously told Insider that it was “empowering” to play the queen consort as a Black actress.
It has been said that Queen Charlotte could have been the first Black member of the British royal family. Here’s everything we know about the royal.
There’s a historical theory that Queen Charlotte was a descendant of a Black branch of the Portuguese royal family, though this has been disputed by historians
Queen Charlotte was born Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to a German duke and princess in 1744. She became queen consort of Britain upon her marriage to King George III in 1761 at the age of 17. The couple wed just six hours after Charlotte arrived in the UK from Germany.
It has been claimed that Charlotte was a descendant of a Black branch of the Portuguese royal family.
The theory was popularized by historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom. According to The Guardian, Valdes claims that the queen was related to Margarita de Castro e Souza, “a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman nine generations removed, whose ancestry traces from the 13th-century ruler Alfonso III and his lover Madragana,” whom he believes to “have been a Moor and thus a black African.”
“Six different lines can be traced from English Queen Charlotte back to Margarita de Castro y Sousa, in a gene pool which because of royal inbreeding was already minuscule, thus explaining the Queen’s unmistakable African appearance,” Valdes wrote in a 1997 article for PBS which features outdated, offensive, racist language and assumptions.
The theory has been disputed by several historians, including Hakim Adi, a professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester.
Adi told Insider that “the evidence is slender, to put it mildly.” He also said that pinpointing Charlotte’s race would depend on your definition of “Blackness.”
Buckingham Palace also appeared to disregard Valdes’ theory when a reporter from The Boston Globe asked about Charlotte’s ancestry in 1999.
“This has been rumored for years and years. It is a matter of history, and frankly, we’ve got far more important things to talk about,” the spokesperson said, according to The Independent.
Buckingham Palace and Netflix did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.
‘Bridgerton’ reimagines a more diverse society during the Regency era, and suggests Queen Charlotte was the catalyst
Queen Charlotte’s race is briefly mentioned in episode four of season one of “Bridgerton,” when Lady Danbury reminds Simon that King George and Charlotte’s union is the reason why society was more inclusive, especially for those among the aristocracy.
“Look at our Queen. Look at our King. Look at their marriage, look at everything it is doing for us, allowing us to become. We were two separate societies, divided by color, until a king fell in love with one of us. Love conquers all,” she said.
The new “Queen Charlotte” series shows the process of how the two societies came together.
In real life, the aristocracy — and society in general — was nowhere near as diverse as the show portrays London to be in 1813, especially since the slave trade had not yet been abolished.
The royal family publicly supported Britain’s slave trade in the 1500s. Queen Elizabeth I supported Captain John Hawkins, who captured 300 people from Africa and sold them for hides, ginger, and sugar in 1562.
Marlene Koenig, an expert on British and European royalty, told Insider that “diversity as we know what the word means did not exist” during King George and Queen Charlotte’s reign because slavery wasn’t abolished until 1833 — 15 years after her death.
The ‘Bridgerton’ franchise’s diverse casting decisions have generally been lauded
Whether or not Queen Charlotte was Black, fans and critics of the Netflix series have generally appreciated the casting choices.
The Huntington News’ Sarah Barber praised “Bridgerton” for successfully “opening doors for Black actors and other actors of color to no longer be limited to demeaning servant or slave roles in period pieces.”
Meanwhile, Oprah Mag’s McKenzie Jean-Philippe dubbed the show “a welcome breath of fresh air” since it doesn’t include “exhaustive on-screen dialogue about why my people deserve to be seen on a hit TV series.”
“We’ve already spent decades saying as much. ‘Bridgerton’ just reinforces it,” she added.
The cast has defended the show’s casting choices after some viewers criticized it for not reflecting historical accuracy — a problematic criticism that could be considered racist.
Phoebe Dynevor, who plays Daphne Bridgerton, told Grazia in 2021 that she believes the show had “perfect casting” and that it told stories that hadn’t been shown on screen before.
Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington in the show, also pushed back at the few critics who said it was not considered to be historically accurate to have Black members of the aristocracy during this time.
Adjoa Andoh, who plays Lady Danbury, defended the show’s decision as well, telling Digital Spy in 2021: “There’s real evidence of Black people in this country for centuries. We’ve taken the factual existence of Black people in this country at that time, which is an absolute nailed-on fact and heightened it.”
