Queen Charlotte, Netflix’s new series from the world of Bridgerton, has arrived to the delight of fans.
Set before the main Bridgerton series, which is based on Julia Quinn’s series of romance novels, Queen Charlotte is a new story from Netflix and showrunner Shonda Rhimes.
It looks at the life of Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel), following her during her younger years as she arrives in the England to marry King George III. The young queen is played by India Amarteifio, while Corey Mylchreest is the young king.
While Bridgerton is a work of fiction, Queen Charlotte was a real person.
Born Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Elizabeth Albertina of Saxe-Hildburghausen, the German princess was just 17 years old when she moved to the UK to marry King George III, 22.
They married in 1761 and welcomed their first child the following year. Charlotte and George would go on to have 15 children together, 13 of whom survived into adulthood.
In Bridgerton, Charlotte is played as an adult by Guyanese-British actor Rosheuvel, while her younger counterpart Armateifio’s father is Black and of Ghanaian origin.
This casting is a nod to debates by historians around Queen Charlotte’s race. In the mid-20th century, some historians began to argue that Charlotte must have had Black ancestors, based on portraits and descriptins of her from the time.
This led to a narrative from some that Charlotte was Britain’s first Black queen. Historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom said: “Artists of that period were expected to play down, soften or even obliterate undesirable features in a subject’s face. [But] Sir Allan Ramsay was the artist responsible for the majority of the paintings of the queen, and his representations of her were the most decidedly African of all her portraits.”
However, many historians have pushed back against this idea, claiming that the features used to argue that Charlotte is Black feature in many descriptions and paintings from the period.
Historian Kate Williams told The Guardian in 2009: “If she was Black, this raises a lot of important suggestions about not only our royal family but those of most of Europe, considering that Queen Victoria’s descendants are spread across most of the royal families of Europe and beyond.
“If we class Charlotte as Black, then ergo Queen Victoria and our entire royal family, [down] to Prince Harry, are also Black.”
Netflix’s Queen Charlotte is not meant to be an accurate retelling of the royal’s life, as is explicitly laid out in the show’s opening disclaimer.
Speaking to The Independent, Lady Danbury actor Adjoa Andoh described how Rhimes has used the Bridgerton mini-series to explore what Regency society would have been like if Charlotte was Black.
“When she arrived in this country, there was a huge furore about this woman who was ‘mulatto’ in appearance with her ‘wide nose and her ‘ugly thick lips’, and there was great consternation,” she said.
“So Shonda has done that brilliant thing of going, ‘If there was that consternation when she arrived, well, how did they deal with that? How did the royal family of Hannover here deal with that? How would Charlotte possibly have dealt with it? How would George have dealt with it? What would have happened?”
You can read The Independent’s full interview with Andoh here.
Queen Charlotte is on Netflix now.
