Queen Charlotte and King George III

[Miss Waynfleet]

Was this Britain's first black queen?
Queen Charlotte was the wife of George III and, like him, of German descent. But did she also have African ancestry? By Stuart Jeffries

more http://www.guardian.co.uk...2009/mar/12/race-monarchy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/p...t/famous/royalfamily.html
http://www.rastafarian.ne...lack_queen_of_england.htm













Isn´t interesting how some portrayed her with white traits and other with more African.

[katerzzz]

Interesting.  MW, I always thought, when looking at Queen Charlotte paintings, that she had more broad features usually seen in Africans (no offence of stereotype meant!) Going to read the article now 

[Fragrance78]

Finally, it should be noted that the Royal Household itself, at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, referred to both her Asian and African bloodlines in an apologia it published defending her position as head of the Commonwealth.

I wanna read this apologia. Anyone knows where or how?

[gudgeon]

Was this Britain's first black queen?
Queen Charlotte was the wife of George III and, like him, of German descent. But did she also have African ancestry? By Stuart Jeffries

more http://www.guardian.co.uk...2009/mar/12/race-monarchy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/p...t/famous/royalfamily.html
http://www.rastafarian.ne...lack_queen_of_england.htm

Isn´t interesting how some portrayed her with white traits and other with more African.

Great topic!    And, yes very interesting how different her features are in the different portraits!

It's interesting to me how some people would want to deny it so fervently...as if there is something wrong with being black! What difference does it make? Is she less of a royal because she had some African blood? Less of a human? We all originally are from Africa anyway!!!

[hanzo1]

I think the point of the article is she really can be called black If that branch is so far? also academically speaking there's very few facts and too many assumptions  here

[Miss Waynfleet]

Back at you    

It's interesting to me how some people would want to deny it so fervently...as if there is something wrong with being black! What difference does it make? Is she less of a royal because she had some African blood? Less of a human? We all originally are from Africa anyway!!!

IA! Did you ever heard that Beethoven might also have been black or mixed?

[Lady Alice]

Meh, this is not a new topic of discussion in royalty fan circles; even the article is dated 2009, but the talk existed during Charlotte's time. Naturally, it was a taboo subject for the longest time because of societal norms that existed until the last fifty years, but said taboos never could do anything about the rumor mill.

Curious that QC's 'distinctive' features were not noticed by her contemporaries in her beloved brothers, who were frequent guests in Britain, or inherited much by her own children.

Can you imagine bringing it up to Victoria? "Hey, Maj, d'joo know that your grandma had African ancestry?" Heck, it'd even buy a glacial stare from Queen Mary.

From Wiki, which actually has a decent article portion for Queen Charlotte about this, from which I quote:

Critics of this theory argue that Margarita's and Madragana's distant perch in the queen's family tree, respectively 9 and 15 generations removed, makes any presumed African ancestry, Northern or sub-Saharan, negligible and no more significant in Charlotte than in any other member of any German royal house at that time, and therefore that Charlotte could hardly be accurately described as "mulatto" or "African".[45] Like everyone else, Charlotte had 32,768 ancestors in the 15th generation up her family tree, and she shared descent from Madragana with a large proportion of Europe's royalty and nobility.

We're all of African ancestry if it were all traceable, right? So really (and this is not directed at any particular person), who cares?

(Error in the article: Stockmar was not Queen Charlotte's physician - he was Leopold of Coburg's and later Princess Charlotte's).

[Miss Waynfleet]

If it´s not interesting then okay, I just got a bit annoyed of the 1000th Kate article. 

[Lady Alice]

If it´s not interesting then okay, I just got a bit annoyed of the 1000th Kate article. 

Genealogy to pretty much every royalty fan or disher is interesting, Miss W - it wasn't personal towards you.  I was merely pointing out that it's really nothing new.

Didn't QEII vaguely acknowledge something about this some time back, around the time this was a hot topic a couple of years ago? Or was it Charles?

And oh yes, I agree about the K deluge. I wish something would happen to knock her off the front pages everywhere.

[gudgeon]

Back at you    

It's interesting to me how some people would want to deny it so fervently...as if there is something wrong with being black! What difference does it make? Is she less of a royal because she had some African blood? Less of a human? We all originally are from Africa anyway!!!

IA! Did you ever heard that Beethoven might also have been black or mixed?

I think it's really interesting and fun to talk about      No, I hadn't heard that about Beethoven! I'll have to investigate!

Reading one of the articles you linked to brought up this story - also very interesting and sweet to know that not everyone of a certain time believed in the norms of their society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_Elizabeth_Belle

Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804) was an illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and an enslaved African woman known as Belle. Very little is known about Belle except that she was black. Her daughter Dido was sent to live in the household of William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was Lindsay's uncle and thus Dido's great-uncle.

Lindsay sent the child to his uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, who lived with his family at Kenwood House in Hampstead, which was then just outside London, England. Mansfield and his wife, who were childless, were already raising her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray after her mother's death; Dido was about the same age as Elizabeth. It is possible that Mansfield took Dido in to be Elizabeth's playmate and, later in life, her personal attendant (her role within the family as outlined below suggests that her standing was more that of a lady's companion than a lady's maid).

Dido spent some 30 years at Kenwood House. Her position was unusual because she was formally the daughter of a slave, and as such would have been considered a slave outside of Britain. But she was to some extent treated as a member of the family. Lord Mansfield himself resolved this paradox in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. When called on to judge the case of an escaped slave, Somersett's Case, he decreed: "The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England." Mansfield's decision was taken by abolitionists to mean that slavery was abolished in England, although his wording reserves judgment on this point, and he later said it was only to apply to the slave at issue in the case. Historians have since suggested that his personal experience influenced his decision.


The last sentence is key for me be cause I really think that it's people's own experiences with something (civil rights, gay marriage, etc) that will change their opinion. So, IMO, yes let's acknowledge and celebrate people's differences and then we can learn to support and move on from discriminatory laws, societies, etc. So...to bring it back to Charlotte, yes, even though the African ancestry was very far back, she clearly had African features so why not acknowledge and embrace it?

[SouthernBelle]

If it´s not interesting then okay, I just got a bit annoyed of the 1000th Kate article. 

There's nothing wrong with a little history to go with our dish, MW.  I actually became interested in European royalty during my high school history class, so this is taking me back to the beginnning in a way.

Charlotte reminds me of the Creoles of south Louisiana. They are of African, French, Spanish and Native American descent. Many have very light complexions compared to other African Ameircans, but their featurea are distinctively African. Maybe her African ancestors weren't as far back as many historians believe.

[Cloaked]

Charlotte is a very interesting character.
Her hair is quite thick and springy, though it is red.
She had fifteen children!
Only five or six of them had children. Her daughter, Sophia, could have had an illegitimate child in suspicious circumstances - says the story of Charlotte in Wiki that I just read.
David Cameron is a descendant of her son William.

I love that Charlotte could have had an African connection.
Beatrice sometimes is thought to look a little like Queen Victoria.
I think that Beatrice also looks a little like Victoria's grandmother - Charlotte.

[BessieWallis Warfield]

Charlotte is a very interesting character.
Her hair is quite thick and springy, though it is red.
She had fifteen children!
Only five or six of them had children. Her daughter, Sophia, could have had an illegitimate child in suspicious circumstances - says the story of Charlotte in Wiki that I just read.
David Cameron is a descendant of her son William.

I love that Charlotte could have had an African connection.
Beatrice sometimes is thought to look a little like Queen Victoria.
I think that Beatrice also looks a little like Victoria's grandmother - Charlotte.

Not only did she have 15 kids - only 2 died in childhood.  That was quite a feat back then.

The African lineage came from a Portguese ancestor, I believe.  From the portraits I have seen of her, I think it's true.  No artist of the day would accentuate African features that were not there, and in the Queen no less. 

Regardless of her lineage, it's been said that she was really ugly, as the top portrait indicates.  It's said that when George first met her, right before their arranged marriage he was physically taken a back!  But he WAS a devoted husband, and loved her.  They were said to be kooky parents, however, trying to instill a very ascetic life.  That bit didn't work out too well.....

[Grace and Diana Fan]

It's amazing that each portrait looks like 6 completely different women. 

[TLLK]

If it´s not interesting then okay, I just got a bit annoyed of the 1000th Kate article. 

There's nothing wrong with a little history to go with our dish, MW.  I actually became interested in European royalty during my high school history class, so this is taking me back to the beginnning in a way.

Charlotte reminds me of the Creoles of south Louisiana. They are of African, French, Spanish and Native American descent. Many have very light complexions compared to other African Ameircans, but their featurea are distinctively African. Maybe her African ancestors weren't as far back as many historians believe.

I hear you Miss W. It's  nice to see something other than a Kate related post.

Admittedly I didn't know much about our last king until recently. (Most of the history books that I read during my elementary school days were not very complimentary toward him.  .)