Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
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Queen Charlotte Duchess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte) (19 May 1738 - 17 November 1820) was the queen consort of King George III(1738-1820).
Queen Charlotte was a patron of the arts, known to J.C. Bach and Mozart, among others. She was also an amateur botanist who helped establish Kew Gardens. Queen Charlotte and King George III had 15 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood.
Six different lines can be traced from English Queen Charlotte back to Margarita de Castro y Sousa (a Moorish branch of the Portuguese Royal House) in a gene pool which because of royal inbreeding was already minuscule, thus explaining the Queen's unmistakable African appearance.
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Birth, youth, and marriage
Charlotte was the youngest daughter of Charles Louis Frederick, Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz-Mirow (23 February, 1707 - 5 June, 1752) and his wife, Elizabeth Albertine, Princess of Saxe-Hildburghausen and Duchess in Saxony (4 August, 1713 - 29 June, 1761).
She was a granddaughter of Adolf Friedrich II of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (October 19, 1658 - May 12, 1708) by his third wife, Christiane Emilie Antonie, Princess of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (March, 1681 - November 1, 1751). Her father's elder half brother reigned from 1708 to 1753 as Adolf Friedrich III.
Queen Charlotte was of Moorish lineage and a descendant, through at least three and possibly through as many as six lines, of Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Portuguese noblewoman who lived in the 15th century. Castro was a descendant of the 13th-century Portuguese monarch Alfonso (Afonso) III and his mistress, Mourana Gil -- who also is described as African of Moorish descent. Castro eventually became an ancestress of most northern European royals, including George III.
The riddle of Queen Charlotte's African ancestry was solved as a result of an earlier investigation into the Moorish magi featured in 15th century Flemish paintings. Two art historians had suggested that the Moorish magi must have been portraits of actual contemporary people (since the artist, without seeing them, would not have been aware of the subtleties in colouring and facial bone structure of quadroons or octoroons which these figures invariably represented) Enough evidence was accumulated to propose that the models for the Moorish magi were, in all probability, members of the Portuguese de Sousa family. (Several de Sousas had in fact traveled to the Netherlands when their cousin, the Princess Isabella went there to marry the Grand Duke, Philip the Good of Burgundy in the year 1429.)
Charlotte, to date, is the most prominent of Castro's descendants to have been described by contemporaries as having what they believed were African features, features that were much commented on during her youth and caricatured by contemporary artists.
For a woman marrying the sovereign of one of the most powerful countries of the time, her own connection to 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), but there was no reigning monarch. While her 62 closest ancestors included some reigning princes, one might observe that she was of noble 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 monarchs are found in her earlier ancestry.
Charlotte's brother Adolf Friedrich IV of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (reigned 1752 - 1794) and her widowed mother actively negotiated for a prominent marriage for the young princess. At the age of 17, Charlotte was selected as the bride of the young King George, though 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 advisors. 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 discovered to be forgeries.
Princess Charlotte arrived in Britain in 1761, and the couple were married at the Chapel Royal in St. James's Palace, London, on September 8 of that year.
Despite not having been her husband's first choice of bride, and having been treated with a general lack of sympathy by his mother, Charlotte's marriage was a happy one, and the king was apparently never unfaithful to her. In the course of their marriage, they had fifteen children, all but two — Octavius and Alfred — of whom survived into adulthood.
Issue
Interests and patronage
Template:Infobox hrhstyles 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.
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.
Husband's illness
After the onset of his illness, then misunderstood as 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 behavior and occasional violent reactions. However, Charlotte remained supportive of her husband as his mental illness, now believed to be porphyria, worsened in old age.
Death
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 two years later.
Ancestral studies postulating "African features"
The Queen's ancestry most notably promoted, was Vandalic descent. This was in turn used by anti-slavery activists in abolitionism, as a de facto support for their cause.
The queen's biographer Olwen Hedley stated that Queen Charlotte's personal physician, Christian Friedrich, Baron von Stockmar, described his patient as having "true mulatto features" ("ein wahres Mulattengesicht"), presumably meaning that she appeared to have African blood.
Queen Charlotte's family connection to Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Portuguese noblewoman who lived in the 15th century, and through her to the 13th-century Portuguese monarch Alfonso (Afonso) III and his mistress, Mourana Gil, described as African of Moorish descent, has been mentioned above. Critics of this research, however, argue that Castro's distant perch in the queen's family tree makes any presumed African ancestry highly negligible, and no different from that held by any other member of any German princely house at that time. However, Charlotte, to date, is the most prominent of Castro's descendants to have been described by contemporaries as having what they believed were African features, features that were much commented on during her youth.
The idea of her African features being inherited is based on the genetical material from several lines of one's ancestry combining and concentrating in that one individual. Such an occurrence usually requires closer ancestors with similar features, and those genes coming from the both sides of one's parentage. We know (e.g from knowledge about most recent common ancestor) that each person has ancestry in all parts of the planet. As both of Charlotte's parents undoubtedly were descended from a number of African ancestors, her broader features and darker coloring could be explained by a foremother in 15th century.
However, a much more credible explanation to anyone's African features would be a parent being of visible African blood.
Another story of an African child born to European royals is that of a daughter of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain.
Queen Charlotte's Hospital
Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital(London, United Kingdom)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.
Named in her honor
- Vandalia
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Charlotte County, Virginia
- 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 Charlottes Maternity Hospital, The oldest maternity hospital in the United Kingdom]
External links and references
- Page at Genealogics.org
- PBS's Frontline Article
- Royal Genealogies
- King George III: Mad or Misunderstood?
- Hedley, Olwen Queen Charlotte J Murray, January 1975, ISBN 0719531047
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