Who is Queen Charlotte and is she black, as seen in the Bridgerton spin-off?
The Bridgerton spin-off Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story debuted on Netflix over a year ago, adding a brand new story to the Bridgerton universe – one that wasn’t in Julia Quinn’s novels.
Queen Charlotte delves into the earlier chapters of Queen Charlotte and King George III – the older versions played by Golda Rosheuvel and James Fleet, serving as a prequel that also features their younger counterparts, played by India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest.
The six-part series tells the story of how they met, fell in love and faced challenges together, including King George’s illness.
But while the character was reimagined for Netflix’s period drama, Queen Charlotte is a real historical figure.
So who was Queen Charlotte really? With many viewers wondering about the accuracy of the portrait and whether she was really a black queen of England, we’ve rounded up all the key information about the real story behind Queen Charlotte: The Bridgerton Saga.
Queen Charlotte was born in a castle in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (in present-day Germany) as the daughter of a Duke and a Princess. In 1761, the newly crowned 22-year-old King George III decided that 17-year-old Charlotte would be a suitable wife.
She rushed to London, where the wedding took place on the day she arrived at St James’s Palace. (This was also the first time the bride and groom met.) At the time, she spoke no English – but she quickly picked up the language of her new homeland.
Less than a year later, Charlotte gave birth to her first child: the future King George IV. In total, the couple had 15 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood. However, their youngest child, Princess Amelia (aka “Emily”), tragically died at the age of 27. The couple appear to have had a close and loving relationship. But then George III began to suffer from bouts of mental illness (which included delusions and mania). This led to much speculation about whether the Queen or her eldest son would act as Regent if the King became mentally unfit to rule, and it was a very uncertain time.
It also led to personal distress for the Queen. As her husband’s condition became more serious, it put a strain on their marriage. From 1804, she slept separately, ate separately, and avoided seeing him alone – and after Emily’s death in 1810, he descended further into what was called “madness”, to the point where his eldest son George was made Prince Regent and ruled in his stead.
Queen Charlotte died in 1818, and just over a year later, her husband followed her to the grave.
Her Bridgerton persona bears little resemblance to her real-life one, as Golda Rosheuvel explains: “Yes, she is Queen Charlotte, but she is Queen Charlotte in the world of Bridgerton. She is a creation of creator/showrunner Chris Van Dusen… rich, filthy rich, chain-smoking, devoted to her family, a gossip, and she is deeply in love with her husband, who is slowly going mad.”
