| Charlotte of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz |
| Queen Consort of the United Kingdom (more...) |
| Consort |
8 September 1761 – 17
November 1818 |
| Coronation |
22 September 1761 |
| Consort to |
George III |
| Issue |
George IV
Frederick, Duke of York
William IV
Charlotte, Princess Royal
Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent
Princess Augusta Sophia
Princess Elizabeth
Ernest Augustus I of Hanover
Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex
Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
Princess Mary
Princess Sophia
Prince Octavius
Prince Alfred
Princess Amelia |
| Full name |
| Sophia Charlotte |
| Royal house |
House of Hanover
House of Mecklenburg |
| Father |
Karl I Ludwig Frederick of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz-Mirow |
| Mother |
Princess Elizabeth Albertine of
Saxe-Hildburghausen |
| Born |
19 May 1744(1744--)
 Mirow, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany |
| Baptised |
20 May 1744
Mirow, Germany |
| Died |
17 November 1818 (aged 74)
 Kew
Palace, London |
| Burial |
2 December 1818
St George's Chapel, Windsor |
Queen Charlotte, (née Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; 19 May
1744 – 17 November 1818) was the
queen consort of George III of the
United Kingdom (1738–1820). She is the grandmother of
Queen Victoria, and the great-great-great-great grandmother of the
current Queen of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II.
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.
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 to George III
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 an extremely pretty young
woman, 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 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 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 — Octavius and Alfred — of whom survived into adulthood. As time went on, she wielded considerable power within the realm,
although she evidently never misused it.
Interests and patronage
"Patroness of Botany, and of the Fine Arts"
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.
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 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.
Issue
| Name |
Birth |
Death |
Notes |
| George IV |
12 August 1762 |
26 June 1830 |
married 1795, Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; had issue |
| Frederick, Duke of York |
16 August 1763 |
5 January 1827 |
married 1791, Princess Frederica of Prussia; no issue |
| William IV |
21 August 1765 |
20 June 1837 |
married 1818, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; no surviving issue |
| Charlotte, Princess Royal |
29 September 1766 |
6 October 1828 |
married 1797, Frederick, King of Württemberg; no issue |
| Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent |
2 November 1767 |
23 January 1820 |
married 1818, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld;
had issue (Queen Victoria) |
| Princess Augusta Sophia |
8 November 1768 |
22 September 1840 |
|
| Princess Elizabeth |
22 May 1770 |
10 January 1840 |
married 1818, Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg; no issue |
| Ernest Augustus I of Hanover |
5 June 1771 |
18 November 1851 |
married 1815, Princess Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; had
issue |
| Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex |
27 January 1773 |
21 April 1843 |
(1) married in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772,
The Lady Augusta Murray; had issue; marriage annulled 1794
(2) married 1831, The Lady Cecilia Buggins (later
1st Duchess of Inverness); no issue |
| HRH The Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge |
24 February 1774 |
8 July 1850 |
married 1818, Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel; had
issue |
| Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester |
25 April 1776 |
30 April 1857 |
married 1816, Prince William, Duke of
Gloucester; no issue |
| Princess Sophia |
3 November 1777 |
27 May 1848 |
had issue |
| Prince Octavius |
23 February 1779 |
3 May 1783 |
|
| Prince Alfred |
22 September 1780 |
20 August 1782 |
|
| Princess Amelia |
7 August 1783 |
2 November1810 |
Possibly married Sir Charles Fitzroy; had issue |
Ancestors
Evidence of African ancestry
A description of Charlotte by her physician, Baron Stockmar, that
describes her as having "a true mulatto face" [citation needed], has inspired inquiry about her ancestry and investigation of her
genealogy.
One possibility is that her features were a concentration of traits inherited through three to six lines from a nine times
removed ancestor of hers, Margarita de Castro e Souza[1], a 15th century Portuguese noblewoman
who traced her ancestry six generations earlier to King Afonso III of Portugal
and one of his lovers, Madragana, who has been erroneously described as a Moor, when she was, in fact, a Mozarab (Iberian Christians living under Muslim control) of Sephardi Jewish origin.[citation needed]
Sir Allan Ramsay, a noted abolitionist,
frequently painted the Queen. His works are said to emphasize the alleged mulatto appearance of Charlotte[2]. Ramsay's coronation portrait of Charlotte was sent to the colonies and was
used by abolitionists as a de facto support for their cause[3]. 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."[4]
Critics of this theory argue that Margarita's (and Madragana's) distant perch in the queen's family tree 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".
Another explanation is that Charlotte's mother, Elizabeth Albertine, was the illegitimate daughter of
Abram Petrovich Gannibal, and that Charlotte could therefore have been
one-quarter Black[citation needed].
It should be noted 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.
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.
Queen Charlotte in popular culture
Queen Charlotte was portrayed by actress Helen Mirren in the film The Madness of King George (1994). Mirren was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her sympathetic portrayal of Charlotte as a
devoted wife to George III, but would later win the award in the Best Actress category for playing Charlotte's
great-great-great-great granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II in the
The Queen (2006).
Titles, style, honours and arms
Titles
- 1744–61: Her Serene Highness Duchess Sophia
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
- 1761–1800: Her Majesty Queen Charlotte of Great
Britain and Ireland
- 1801–1814: Her Majesty Queen Charlotte of the
United Kingdom
- 1814–18: Her Majesty Queen Charlotte of the United
Kingdom, Queen of Hanover
Named in her honour
- Vandalia
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Charlotte County, Virginia
- 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 indegnous to South Africa
External links and references
References
- ^ One Hundred Great Black Britons
- ^ ibid.
- ^ ibid.
- ^ ibid.
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