Who was the real Queen Charlotte? Historic queen explained

We have a new Netflix hit on our hands. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the new spin-off of the hit period drama, was released at the beginning of May and quickly went on to become the number one show on the streaming platform in the UK. From the endlessly creative mind of Shonda Rhimes, came the backstory we never knew we needed; that of Golda Rosheuvel’s imperiously quippy monarch, played in her younger years by the brilliant new star India Amarteifio. Over six episodes, Queen Charlotte – Bridgerton’s only character to be based on a historical figure – is brought to emotive, bingeable life. Though the creators of the show announce lovingly that this is “fiction inspired by fact” and that “all liberties taken by the author are quite intentional”, how close is the story to the reality? Who was the real Queen Charlotte?

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She arrived as a German princess who spoke no English

Contrary to the verbose portrayal of Charlotte in Bridgerton’s prequel, Princess Sophia Charlotte of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz actually spoke no English at all when she arrived. During her wedding day, which occurred just hours after she first stepped foot on English soil, she would have understood almost nothing. A princess from a minor German Duchy, both her parents had died before she came to England. She was relatively uneducated and had no interest in politics – though, as a young girl, she would have seen her mother rule as regent of two German Duchies until Charlotte’s brother came of age. Charlotte was just 17 when she left home.

Charlotte's husband, King George III, was 22 when he came to the throne on the death of his grandfather, George II (as his father had predeceased him). Due to his young age, his mother, Princess Augusta, and her favoured noblemen, still exerted much control over the young monarch. As a result, the King’s mother and Queen Charlotte were not the best of friends. Indeed, Augusta famously made Charlotte’s earliest days at court incredibly difficult by restricting her movements and insisting on choosing her ladies in waiting. Although Lady Danbury is a creation of fiction, her relationship with the King’s mother is born of historical precedent, as many of these women did in fact spy on the young Queen on behalf of Princess Augusta. It was perhaps to escape her mother-in-law’s meddling that the Queen spent increasing amounts of time at the couple’s new residence, Buckingham House, and away from the prying eyes of St James’s Palace.

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She became Britain’s longest-serving Queen Consort…

Two weeks after her wedding, and arrival in England, Queen Charlotte was crowned alongside her husband. It was a coronation marked by mishaps and delays and – according to superstition – ill omens. The gold state coach that we recently saw during the coronation of Charles III was actually first commissioned for the coronation of George and Charlotte. However, it was not ready in time and would not be used until 1831, and the crowning of William IV. George and Charlotte were instead carried to their coronation on sedan chairs in a procession that took so long they were not crowned until six hours after they departed. Throughout the day, crowns were dropped, jewels fell out of coronets and there were not enough seats – even, initially, for the two monarchs.

Despite a rocky start, and his eventual illness, King George III would go on to become our longest-serving male monarch, and Queen Charlotte our longest-serving Queen Consort – a role she embodied for 57 years until her death, just a few months before the King himself. Their reign was marked by highs and lows – the unification of Great Britain, the loss of America in the war of independence and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

While the King was, as in Queen Charlotte, known as ‘Farmer George’ for his interest in agriculture and his humility, Charlotte herself was a huge patron of the arts (she did have a young Mozart play at court and, in fact, he accompanied the Queen as she sang an aria) and a keen botanist, who greatly expanded Kew Gardens. She also gave us the German tradition of the Christmas tree – bringing the first known English Christmas tree to her home in Windsor in 1800.

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She had a happy marriage… and was devastated by the King’s illness

For all the overt romance of Bridgerton, the marriage of George III and Charlotte really was, in fact, a happy one. The King, contrary to precedent, never took a mistress and the royal couple were reported to be extremely content together, until his illness separated them. Though she was initially kept in the dark about his condition, and was reportedly terrified when she discovered it, Charlotte insisted on living with the King at Kew and resisted all attempts to have the monarch declared "insane" – even falling out with her eldest son in the process.

As her husband’s illness worsened, Queen Charlotte was forced to spend less time with him, as his behaviour often became violent and upsetting. The toll the separation took on the Queen was immense; and she was described as having sunk into a great depression and became increasingly reclusive herself. Sadly, when Charlotte died, aged 74, with her eldest son by her side, the King was far too ill to even know or understand what had happened. He would die himself, just 14 months later.

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There really was a succession crisis

George and Charlotte had 15 children together, 13 of whom survived to adulthood, yet Queen Charlotte sees the female monarch obsess over her lack of viable grandchildren (and therefore heirs). This was in fact a reality. Many of her daughters did not marry, and none of her children produced legitimate heirs except her eldest son George, whose daughter –Princess Charlotte of Wales, died in childbirth, as shown in the miniseries. This caused a succession crisis that was indeed solved by the pregnancy of her son Edward’s wife, Victoria.

When Golda Rosheuvel’s Charlotte comments in response to the statement that “a strong queen is just what this country needs” she is making a fourth-wall-breaking nod to the identity of the unborn baby: Queen Victoria, who would ascend to the throne upon the death of her uncle, William IV, in 1837.

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She may have genuinely been a biracial woman

Though the “colour-blind” casting of Bridgerton has provoked some controversy, there is a lot of factual evidence for the idea that Queen Charlotte was in fact a biracial woman. Many contemporaneous paintings depict her this way, including one by Allan Ramsay that became the source of much historical debate and a 1767 pastel by Francis Cotes that was described by Lady Mary Coke, an avid chronicler of the period, as her most accurate likeness.

There are several accounts from the time that address this, including diary entries by a royal physician who made several (disparaging) comments about the possibility. An endlessly debated theory has long been posited that Charlotte may have inherited her features from Madragana – the African mistress of her distant ancestor, King Alfonso III of Portugal.

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