Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was the Queen of the United Kingdom as spouse of King George III.
Queen Charlotte was a patroness of the arts, known to Johann Christian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, among others. She was also an amateur botanist who helped establish Kew Gardens. George III and Queen Charlotte had 15 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood.
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Early life
Charlotte was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince of Mirow (23 February 1707 – 5 June 1752) and his wife, Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Duchess in Saxony (4 August 1713 – 29 June 1761).
She was a granddaughter of Adolf Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (19 October 1658 – 12 May 1708) by his third wife, Christiane Emilie Antonie, Princess of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (March, 1681 – 1 November 1751). Her father's elder half brother reigned from 1708 to 1753 as Adolf Friedrich III.
For a woman marrying the sovereign of one of the most powerful countries of the time, her descent from kings was somewhat remote. All her ancestors up to the level of great-great-great-grandparents were solidly princes, dukes and counts (or the equivalent) with no kings. While her 58 closest ancestors (rather than 62, four of her great-great-great-grandparents are counted twice) included some reigning princes, one might observe that she was of ducal and princely blood, rather than royal blood. Only two of her great-great-great-great-grandfathers were kings: Gustav I of Sweden and Frederick I of Denmark and Norway. Other royal monarchs are found in her earlier ancestry.
Marriage
Charlotte's brother Adolf Friedrich IV of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (reigned 1752–94) and her widowed mother actively negotiated for a prominent marriage for the young princess. At the age of 17, Charlotte was known as "plain faced", and was selected as the bride of the young King George, although she was not his first choice. He had already flirted with several young women considered unsuitable by his mother, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and by his political advisers. He also was rumored to have married a young Quaker woman named Hannah Lightfoot, though all later claims to prove this marriage were deemed unfounded and the purported supporting documents found to be forgeries.
Princess Charlotte was collected at Cuxhaven by a squadron of British yachts and warships under Admiral Anson (including the specially renamed HMY Royal Charlotte), but on its return the squadron was subjected to westerly gales and took ten days to reach Harwich, which it did in early September 1761. Charlotte then travelled to London, where the couple were married at the Chapel Royal in St. James's Palace, London, on 8 September of that year. Her mother-in-law did not welcome her with open arms, and for some time there was a slight tension between the two. However, the king's mother had yet to accept any woman with whom he was alleged to have been involved, therefore it seems that the young king cared little for her approval by this time.
Despite not having been her husband's first choice as a bride, and having been treated with a general lack of sympathy by her mother-in-law, the Dowager Princess of Wales, Charlotte's marriage was a happy one, and the king was apparently never unfaithful to her. In the course of their marriage, they had 15 children, all but two of whom (Octavius and Alfred) survived into adulthood. As time went on, she wielded considerable power within the realm, although she evidently never misused it.
Interests and patronage
Queen Charlotte was keenly interested in the fine arts and supported Johann Christian Bach, who was her music teacher. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, dedicated his Opus 3 to her, at her request. The queen also founded orphanages and a hospital for expectant mothers.
In 2004, the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace staged an exhibition illustrating George and Charlotte's enthusiastic arts patronage, which was particularly enlightened in contrast to that of earlier Hanoverian monarchs; it compared favorably to the adventuresome tastes of the king's father, Frederick, Prince of Wales. Among the royal couple's favored craftsmen and artists were the cabinetmaker William Vile, silversmith Thomas Heming, the landscape designer Capability Brown, and the German painter Johann Zoffany, who frequently painted the king and queen and their children in charmingly informal scenes, such as a portrait of Queen Charlotte and her children as she sat at her dressing table.
The queen also was a well-educated amateur botanist and helped establish what is today Kew Gardens. Her interest in botany led to the magnificent South African flower, the Bird of Paradise, being named Strelitzia reginae in her honour.
The education of women was a great importance to the queen, and she saw to it that her daughters were better educated than was usual for young women of the day. However, she insisted that her daughters live restricted lives close to their mother, and refused to allow them to marry until they were well-advanced in years, with the result that none of her daughters had legitimate issue (one, Princess Sophia, may have had an illegitimate son).
Relations with Marie Antoinette
Queen Charlotte and Queen Marie Antoinette of France kept a close relationship. Queen Charlotte was 11 years older than the Queen of France yet they shared many interests, such as their love of music and the arts in which they both enthusiastically took an interest. Never meeting face to face they kept the friendship to pen and paper. Marie Antoinette confided in the Queen of Great Britain upon the outbreak of the French Revolution. It had been said that Queen Charlotte had organized apartments to be prepared and ready for the refugee royal family of France to stay in. After the execution of Marie Antoinette and the bloody events that followed, Queen Charlotte was said to be shocked and overwhelmed that such a thing could happen to a kingdom, and right on Britain’s doorstep. King George lowered taxes to avoid a British revolution.
Husband's illness
After the onset of his madness, George III was placed in the care of his wife, who could not bring herself to visit him very often, due to his erratic behaviour and occasional violent reactions. However, Charlotte remained supportive of her husband as his illness, now believed to be porphyria, worsened in old age. While her son, the Prince Regent, wielded the royal power, she was her husband's legal guardian from 1811 until her 1818 death. She did not see him, though, for at least the last five years of her life.
Later life
The queen died in the presence of her eldest son, the Prince Regent, who was holding her hand as she sat in an armchair at the family's country retreat, Dutch House in Surrey (now known as Kew Palace). She was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor. Her husband died just over a year later. She is the longest-serving consort in British history, having served as such from her marriage (on 8 September 1761) to her death (17 November 1818), a total of 57 years and 70 days.
Titles, style, honours and arms
| Styles of Queen Charlotte |
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 |
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| Reference style | Her Majesty |
|---|---|
| Spoken style | Your Majesty |
| Alternative style | Ma'am |
Titles and styles
- 19 May 1744 – 8 September 1761: Her Serene Highness Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
- 8 September 1761 - 17 November 1818: Her Majesty The Queen
Issue
Ancestors
| Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz | Father: Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz |
Paternal grandfather: Adolf Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz |
Paternal great-grandfather: Adolf Friedrich I of Mecklenburg-Strelitz |
| Paternal great-grandmother: Maria Katharina of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel |
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| Paternal grandmother: Christiane Emilie of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen |
Paternal great-grandfather: Christian Wilhelm I of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen |
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| Paternal great-grandmother: Antoine Sybille of Barby-Muhlingen |
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| Mother: Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen |
Maternal grandfather: Ernest Frederick I of Saxe-Hildburghausen |
Maternal great-grandfather: Ernest III of Saxe-Hildburghausen |
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| Maternal great-grandmother: Sofie of Waldeck |
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| Maternal grandmother: Sofie Albertine of Erbach-Erbach |
Maternal great-grandfather: Georg Ludwig I of Erbach-Erbach |
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| Maternal great-grandmother: Amelie Katherine of Waldeck-Eisenberg |
Legacy
Claims of African ancestry
Mario de Valdes y Cocom, a historian of the African diaspora, has argued1 that a description of Charlotte by her physician, Baron Stockmar describes her as having "a true mulatto face".dubious
Valdes y Cocom says that Allan Ramsay, a noted abolitionist, frequently painted the Queen in works said to emphasize the alleged mulatto appearance of Charlotte, and that Ramsay's coronation portrait of Charlotte was sent to the colonies and was used by abolitionists as a de facto support for their cause. Valdes y Cocom goes on to state that, along with descriptions of a "mulatto face", the Queen's features had also been described as Vandalic, as exemplified by a poem written for the occasion of her marriage:
- "Descended from the warlike Vandal race,
- She still preserves that title in her face."2
All this has led Mario de Valdes y Cocom to inquire about her ancestry and research her genealogy. Still according to Valdes y Cocom, one of the possibilities for Queen Charlotte's supposed racial features is that they were a concentration of traits inherited through three to six lines from a nine times removed ancestor of hers, Margarita de Castro e Souza, a 15th century Portuguese noblewoman who traced her ancestry six generations earlier to King Afonso III of Portugal and one of his lovers, Madragana.
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".
Even more, Valdez y Cocom assumed that Madragana was a Black African woman, because a single author, Duarte Nunes de Leão, described her as a Moor3, that is to say, in the context of the Iberian Reconquista, someone of Islamic religion, regardless of actual ethnic origin (and that could have been Arab, North African Berber, or Muladi - native Iberian European Christians who converted to Islam after the arrival of the Moors, all of whom can be described as Caucasian or White)citation needed. Modern research, however, believe Madragana to have been a Mozarab, that is to say an Iberian Christian living under Muslim control, of Sephardi Jewish origin.4
Valdez y Cocom has also argued, trying to defend the African origin of Queen Charlotte, that the Royal Household itself, at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1952, referred to both her Asian and African bloodlines in an apologia it published defending her position as head of the Commonwealth.1 This is denied by Buckingham Palace.5 The issue remains important to those concerned with the history of the African diaspora.
Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital
Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital in London, England has been in existence since 1739, making it the oldest maternity hospital in the United Kingdom. Queen Charlotte's son, the Duke of Sussex, persuaded her to give her name to the hospital, which was a charitable institution at the time.
Portrayals
Queen Charlotte was played by actress Frances White in the 1979 BBC series Prince Regent and later by Helen Mirren in the film The Madness of King George (1994).
Named in her honour
- Vandalia and Charlotina (proposed but unrealized North American colonies)
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Charlotte County, Virginia
- Mecklenburg County, Virginia
- Charlotte Hall, Maryland
- Queensbury, New York
- Charlotte Place, Sydney, New South Wales
- Charlottesville, Virginia
- Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
- Fort Charlotte, Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (named for Queen Charlotte's birth family)
- Port Charlotte, Florida
- Queen Charlotte (British merchant ship, after which the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia were named)
- HMS Queen Charlotte
- Queen's College, New Brunswick, New Jersey (now Rutgers University)
- Queens University, Charlotte, North Carolina
- Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand
- Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, The oldest maternity hospital in the United Kingdom
- Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia
- Strelitzia reginae, a flowering plant indigenous to South Africa
- Mecklenburg Square, Bloomsbury, London
Notes and sources
- ^ a b PBS - The blurred racial lines of famous families - Queen Charlotte
- ^ One Hundred Great Black Britons
- ^ Duarte Nunes de Leão,Crónica d'El Rei Dom Afonso III, 1600; modern edition: Duarte Nunes de Leão, Crónica dos Reis de Portugal, Porto, Lello & Irmão, 1975.
- ^ Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, Brasões da Sala de Sintra, 3 vols., Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda, 1973; António Caetano de Sousa, História Genealógica da Casa Real Portuguesa, Coimbra, Atlântida-Livraria Editora, 1946; Felgueiras Gayo & Carvalhos de Basto, Nobiliário das Famílias de Portugal, Braga, 1989; José Augusto de Sotto Mayor Pizarro, Linhagens Medievais Portuguesas, 3 vols., Porto, Universidade Moderna, 1999; Manuel Abranches de Soveral, "Origem dos Souza ditos do Prado", in Machado de Vila Pouca de Aguiar. Ascendências e parentescos da Casa do Couto d'Além em Soutelo de Aguiar, Porto, 2000.
- ^ Letter from the Palace shown at OneDropRule.org - The Study of Racialism: Discussion of U.S. Racialism.
External links and references
- Queen Charlotte, 1744–1818: A Bilingual Exhibit (c1994)
- The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families — Queen Charlotte at the PBS site
- Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz at Genealogics
- Royal Genealogies
- King George III: Mad or Misunderstood?
- Hedley, Olwen Queen Charlotte J Murray, January 1975, ISBN 0-7195-3104-7
- The Search for Princess Charlotte
- Archival material relating to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz listed at the UK National Register of Archives
| British royalty | ||
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| Vacant
Title last held by
Caroline of Ansbach |
Queen Consort of Great Britain 1761-1801 |
Act of Union creates the United Kingdom |
| Queen Consort of Ireland 1761-1801 |
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| New title Previously Queen Consort of Great Britain and of Ireland
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Queen consort of the United Kingdom 1801-1818 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Caroline of Brunswick |
| Hanoverian royalty | ||
| Vacant
Title last held by
Caroline of Ansbach |
Electress of Hanover 1761-1814 |
Became Queen Consort |
| New title Previously Electress
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Queen Consort of Hanover 1814-1818 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Caroline of Brunswick |
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Charlotte of |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1744-5-19 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mirow, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1818-11-17 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Kew Palace, London, England, UK |
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