While Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story explores how King George III’s (Corey Mylchreest and James Fleet) condition impacted their marriage, it does not reveal the worst of his hallucinations. By the ending of the show, Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio and Golda Rosheuvel) has discovered the tragedy of her husband’s mental illness, a storyline that is expanded as the two grow closer and King George attempts to be a good husband despite it. But given that the series needed to balance two timelines and ensure that the tone did not become too dark, it makes sense that it needed to remove some of the most painful facts of King George’s condition.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is a spin-off of the popular Bridgerton series on Netflix and tells the story of a young Queen Charlotte’s rise to power. As the new queen navigates her marriage and social changes in court, the series also establishes a parallel timeline where Queen Charlotte must aid in a crisis of succession, especially as her husband’s health continues to deteriorate. As part of exploring his health and her marriage to King George III, the cast of Queen Charlotte depicts how the king initially attempted to hide his condition from his wife and better manage it so he could be present both in court and in her life.
Queen Charlotte Omits That The Real King George Hallucinated Visions Of His Dead Children
While Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story depicts some of King George’s more whimsical hallucinations, it leaves out or only hints toward his much darker ones. In real life, King George experienced mood swings and was said to talk constantly, sometimes speaking with those who had already passed, and others in which he believed he had died and conversed with angels. Among these visions were those in which the king reportedly saw and interacted with his dead children. In contrast, Queen Charlotte depicts King George’s episodes in which he thinks he sees the goddess Venus in the palace garden, largely omitting his more macabre hallucinations.
King George’s Visions Make 1 Bridgerton Scene Even More Tragic
Among the visions that were cut from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, one of the most tragic is when King George spoke with one of his dead daughters. During one of his episodes, King George reportedly described the funeral of his favorite daughter, Princess Amelia, to her. Princess Amelia was the youngest of King George’s children and his sixth daughter; she died at age 27 in 1810. Her early death and the grief this caused the king makes this vision one of the most tragic real-life hallucinations he experienced.
However, while Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story did not explicitly depict this hallucination in the show, it does refer to the loss of Princess Amelia and its cost to the king. One notorious scene depicts King George inquiring about his daughter and refusing to believe Queen Charlotte when she gently reminds him that Amelia passed. This real-life vision adds greater context to this scene and the increasingly apparent way that life, death, and memory began to blur for King George III, adding to the tragedy of his illness.
