The story of Bridgerton, the new period drama on Netflix, might not be historically accurate but there's one character that has viewers curious and intrigued and she's none other than Queen Charlotte, the great-grandmother four times over of Queen Elizabeth II.
Golda Rosheuvel plays Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton and she is a British actress and singer who was born in Guyana in South America. Her dark skin and Black heritage might have raised some questions from viewers -- was Queen Charlotte really biracial and if so, how is she related to Her Majesty?
In an interview with Collider, Bridgerton co-creator Chris Van Dusen said the real Queen Charlotte was the first mixed-race English queen. Historians have been digging up evidence of her ancestry among the people of color for many decades.
Born in 1744 as Sophia Charlotte from Mecklenburg-Strelitz, there have been portraits of the queen depicting her as African, per historian Joel Augustus Rogers wrote in the book Sex and Race, Volume 1. In 1999, Frontline also did an investigative piece tracing the roots of Queen Charlotte with historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom. They found out that she was a descendant of Margarita de Castro y Sousa of the Portuguese Royal House.
According to de Valdes, they've traced at least six different lines from Charlotte's family tree to the Black branch of the Portuguese royal family, which explains her distinct African appearance. One of these lines was the illegitimate son of a Portuguese royal from an African mistress.
Charlotte married King George III in 1761, the grand uncle of Queen Victoria, one of England's most impressive monarchs, two times over. They had 15 children together in their 60 years of marriage and were believed to be soulmates.
However, in the final years of the king, Charlotte had been separated from her husband as he suffered from dementia, blindness, and deafness, according to historians. She passed away soon after her husband died, with some historians claiming that it hurt her to lose George because she was such a devoted wife.
In Bridgerton, Charlotte became deeply involved in the social scene during the Regency period and had been interested in the gossips among the social elites. In real life, she did host annual balls and made matches for debutantes, which was a tradition that went on in Buckingham Palace until Queen Elizabeth permanently canceled it in the 1950s.
Meanwhile, Bridgerton season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix with 10 episodes and is awaiting a second season renewal.
