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Charlotte was founded by European settlers in 1768, when King George III still ruled the Colonies. They named the new hamlet after the King’s wife, Queen Charlotte, and gave the surrounding county the name Mecklenburg in honor of her majesty’s birthplace in Germany.
- The History of Charlotte
From its Colonial inception to its part in the U.S.’s first...
- The History of Charlotte
- Overview
- How Charlotte became Queen of Great Britain
- Were Queen Charlotte and King George in love?
- The 'madness' of King George
- Was Charlotte really Britain’s first Black queen?
Historians still debate whether she was really Britain’s first Black queen. But a new Netflix spin-off of the popular 'Bridgerton' makes clear that interest in her life is stronger than ever.
Scottish painter Allan Ramsay's portrait of Queen Charlotte in her coronation robes has inspired debate over whether she was Britain's first Black queen—a question that persists today, centuries after she ruled over Great Britain and Ireland.
When 17-year-old Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz caught her first glimpse of the London palace that was to be her home in 1761, she turned pale. She was set to become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland within hours, but she had never set foot in England or met her husband-to-be.
What happened next is the stuff of royal history—and the subject of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The new Netflix limited series fictionalizes the life of the timid German girl destined to rule England—and who is rumored to have been its first Black queen. But who was the real Queen Charlotte?
Born in 1744 in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a duchy in what is now Northern Germany, the princess had an unremarkable childhood in what other members of the European aristocracy considered to be a mediocre and provincial dukedom. But this would work in the young woman’s favor when a far-off prince became king.
In 1760, George III’s grandfather died, making him King of England—and making his unmarried status a matter of national alarm. George needed a wife, and he needed one fast, his advisers decided—and they mounted a desperate search for a Protestant princess to share his life and sire an heir.
(Who was the first King of England? The answer is ... complicated.)
Charlotte was unknown and thought to have no political connections or aims. This was seen as a plus by George’s political advisers, who wanted British interests to prevail after the king’s marriage. And so, though George had never met Charlotte, in 1761 an emissary proposed marriage on his behalf. Charlotte accepted, and the arranged marriage took place just six hours after the young princess arrived in England.
By all reports, the king and queen had an unusually happy marriage, and George III was a devoted father and husband. But court life was difficult for Charlotte, who clashed with her mother-in-law over the formal rules of the British aristocracy and found the expectation to bear plenty of heirs exhausting. By the time she had borne 14 of her 15 children, she wrote that “I don’t think a prisoner could wish more ardently for his liberty than I wish to be rid of my burden.”
Though Charlotte struggled with the boredom and confinement of court life, she found her own ways to deal with the crushing expectations of her new role. The year after her marriage, George bought her a large country estate owned by the Dukes of Buckingham. Buckingham House, now known as Buckingham Palace, was called the “Queen’s House,” and there she lived in comfortable domesticity, reading, doing needlework, and playing the harpsichord.
(8 royal residences in the U.K. you can actually visit.)
She shared a love of botany and plants with her husband, who became known as “Farmer George” due to his agricultural interests.
But the couple’s happiness did not last. In 1765, George experienced a bout of mental illness so serious that his ministers proposed having Charlotte temporarily take the throne while the king was incapacitated.
Though the king soon recovered, he experienced relapse after relapse, and eventually it became clear his mental illness would not pass. The king experienced mania, depression, hallucinations, and convulsions, and historians report that he attacked and even sexually assaulted members of his family.
(Does King George III sound familiar? He was the last king of America.)
These bouts of illness devastated the queen. “The queen is almost overpowered with some secret terror,” wrote Francis Burney, one of Charlotte’s attendants, in 1788. “I am affected beyond all expression in her presence, to see what struggles she makes to support serenity.” Over time, the bouts turned into lengthy episodes, and the king was isolated and even incarcerated.
Social stigma and lack of understanding of mental illness meant it was nearly impossible to help the “mad” king or gain the kind of support now regarded as key for the caretakers and loved ones of people with mental illness.
Eventually, Charlotte’s son George (later George IV) took over the throne as regent. But her husband would remain ill for the rest of his life, and by 1789 the queen’s hair had “turned white under the stress of the King’s illness.” When Charlotte died in 1818, her husband was so ill he did not understand his wife was dead.
Today, Charlotte is remembered as a faithful wife and a tragic figure connected with the king’s mental illness. But some see her as noteworthy for another reason—they claim she was Great Britain’s first Black or biracial queen. For decades, historians have debated whether Charlotte’s ancestral ties to Portuguese aristocracy mean she had brown skin.
Those who believe she had Black ancestry point to portraits that show what they describe as “African” features and say other depictions of the time that show the queen as light-skinned would have been hiding her ancestry to conform with the era’s Eurocentric beauty ideals. But others say the queen’s ancestry was so distant it likely did not affect her looks, and argue that modern conceptions of race are what’s driving the belief that Charlotte was black.
(Some describe Charlotte's ancestry as "Moorish." Who were the Moors?)
Since it’s impossible to determine how Charlotte really looked in real life, the argument will likely never be settled. Nor will public interest in Charlotte’s life, as evidenced by the new Netflix limited-run series—which has gained fans, charmed reviewers, and drawn newfound attention to the tragic queen’s life. But as narrator Julie Andrews says in the show itself, “It is fiction inspired by fact.”
Charlotte was Britain's longest-serving queen consort, serving for 57 years and 70 days. Charlotte was born into the ruling family of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a duchy in northern Germany. In 1760, the young and unmarried George III inherited the British throne.
September 4, 2019. Charlotte, North Carolina, was first settled after colonists made their way down the Great Wagon Road. Northern colonies in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia had become crowded, so settlers went south to seek religious and economic freedom, as well as to take advantage of quality farmland.
Charlotte von Mecklenburg-Strelitz wurde durch Heirat mit König Georg III. zur Königin Charlotte von Großbritannien und von Irland, sowie Kurfürstin von Braunschweig-Lüneburg und später Königin von Hannover. Charlotte hat deshalb neben einigen anderen Städten in den USA auch den Spitznamen „Queen City“.
28. Jan. 2020 · Shawndra Russell 28 January 2020. The Queen City has lived up to its long-established nickname since its founding in 1768 when America was still under British rule. Since King George III’s wife was named Queen Charlotte, the nickname came built in to the city’s identity.
