2023-05-11 01:24:34
The Netflix series ‘The Bridgertons’ has been so successful that it has given rise to a prequel called ‘Queen Charlotte’, which delves precisely into one of the most controversial elements of this fiction. It is, of course, the skin color of the English monarch and many Court aristocrats, who are played by actors from black factions in fiction.
The creators of the saga have justified this creative decision as long as it is a fanciful and dystopian representation of the British period known as the Regency, which spanned from 1811 to 1820. Shonda Rhimes, its main screenwriter, has defended that “it is not a history lesson”, but a “fiction inspired by facts”. However, one of these facts would be the one that Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitzwife of the crazed George III and protagonist of the spin off, had African origin, which obeys a disputed theory that few historians support today.
Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818) was a German duchess who became Queen consort of the United Kingdom by marriage to George III. A patron of the arts and sciences, Charlotte turned to non-political issues upon her arrival in the British Isles and it was not until the disabling mental illness of her husband that she stepped forward to support the regency. of her son, the future George IV. In addition to her for her cultural activity, the Queen has gone down in history for the heartbreaking fact of having given birth to 15 children, of whom 13 survived to adulthood. This succession of births guaranteed the continuity of the Hannover dynasty throughout the 19th century, but in return it left the monarch physically and mentally exhausted.
In her diary, Carlota even noted: «I spent the first twenty years pregnant. I don’t think a prisoner could more ardently desire his freedom than I, to be released from my obligation and see the end of my motherly campaign. I would be happy if I knew it was the last time.”
Due to the particular features of the Queen, who in her day was not exactly described as beautiful, in the middle of the twentieth century Several authors began to speculate on the possible African ancestry of this German noblewoman. The Jamaican-American writer JA Rogers already outlined this theory in his book ‘Sex and Race: Volume I’ pointing to the “wide nostrils and thick lips” shown in some paintings.
According to the Prime Minister’s memoirs Horace Walpoleespecially wide features always stood out in the physiognomy of his face:
“She is of medium height, and rather small, but her form is fine and her carriage graceful; her hands and neck were very well scrambled; her brown hair; her round blond face; the eyes of a light blue, and radiant with sweetness; her nose a little flat, and she came up on point; her mouth quite large, with pink lips and very fine teeth ».
Due to the particular features of the Queen, in the mid-20th century several authors began to speculate about the possible African ancestry of this German noblewoman.
Various paintings by the Scottish painter Allan Ramsay they portray the monarch with very frizzy hair and without softening the excessiveness of a wide mouth. The defenders of this theory point out that the Scotsman was a defender of abolishing slavery and wanted with this gesture, deviating from the representations that hid the Queen’s African features, to denounce the racism prevailing in the period. Like everything related to this theory, the evidence that this was true hangs by a thread.
A disputed theory
The statement about the African, mixed-race or black blood of the Queen consort has been defended by a handful of authors more media than academic, who have even outlined genealogical theories to justify this African ancestry. Very popular theories, which are not supported by genetic tests and which focus on a remote ancestor of Carlota from the Portuguese royal house named Margarita de Castro y Sousa.
In 1996, Mario de Valdesan independent researcher specializing in the history of Africa, argued on the ‘Frontline’ program of the US public channel PBS that Carlota clearly showed in the portraits an “unmistakable African appearance” and a “negroid physiognomy” that was due to her Portuguese ancestry.
Margarita de Castro e Souza was a 15th century Portuguese noblewoman who traced her ancestry to a bastard branch of the King Alfonso III of Portugal (1210-1279), one of the sons of the Castilian Queen Urraca. The Portuguese sovereign would have had offspring, specifically three children, with a lover from North Africa named Madragana (c. 1230–?), which formed “a black branch” in the Portuguese royal family that ended up connecting with other European houses, including Carlota’s, through the Souza family.
Portrait of George III in the royal collection.
Apart from the great distance of centuries that separate Margarita de Castro from Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and, in general, from the scant contribution of evidence by Valdés, the fundamental problem of this theory stems from assuming that because King Alfonso’s mistress was African, she must have been black. Critics of Valdés’s theory point out that, although Madragana came from North Africa, a place of great political and economic interest for Portugal, she was probably a Mozarabic. The historian Manuel Abranches points out in his work ‘Origem dos Souza ditos do Prado’ that the King had a son named Martin Afonso Chichorro with «his Moorish lover, whose name has not been documented but is now generally accepted as Madragana, daughter of the conquered ( 1249) mayor of Faro Aloandro I Bachelor».
Whether or not this young woman, baptized as a Christian and of a Mozarabic father (an Iberian Christian who lived under Muslim domination), was black or had features typical of what is now Algeria or Morocco is something impossible to prove based on the chronicles, which identify her as “mora” or “morisca”. The only clear thing is that he Martin Afonso Chichorro He married into the powerful Souza family and this later linked up with other European houses. Margarita de Castro e Souza would marry the German Count of Neufchâtel and spread her blood throughout Europe.
Queen Charlotte’s family tree may well link to the Souzas, but the same can be said of the European nobility. Her theory about his african descent it is as valid for her as for other royal dynasties, including that of her husband George III, of the German house of Hannover, and for her own descendants, who have not shown genes for what is usually identified as the black race either.
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