Nadene Goldfoot
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. Both kingdoms were in a personal union under him until the Acts of Union 1800 merged them on 1 January 1801. He then became King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.
During George III's lengthy reign, Britain was a constitutional monarchy, ruled by his ministerial government and prominent men in Parliament. Although his accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties, the first years of his reign were marked by political instability, largely as a result of disagreements over the Seven Years' War. George came to be perceived as favouring Tory ministers, which led to his denunciation by the Whigs as an autocrat.
At the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather George II died suddenly on 25 October 1760, two weeks before his 77th birthday. The search for a suitable wife intensified: after giving consideration to a number of Protestant German princesses. In other words, they were given German princesses to choose possibilities from.
George's mother sent Colonel David Graeme with, on her son's behalf, an offer of marriage to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a territory in Northern Germany, held by the younger line of the House of Mecklenburg residing in Neustrelitz. Like the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, it was a sovereign member state of the German Confederation and became a federated state of the North German Confederation and finally of the German Empire upon the unification of 1871. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–19 it was succeeded by the Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Charlotte accepted. While a royal household and staff were assembled for Charlotte in London, Lord Harcourt, the royal Master of the Horse, escorted her from Strelitz to London. Charlotte arrived in the afternoon of 8 September 1761 and the marriage ceremony was conducted that same evening in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.
A fortnight later on 22 September, both were crowned at Westminster Abbey. George never took a mistress (in contrast with his grandfather and his sons), and the couple enjoyed a happy marriage until his mental illness struck.
George, in his accession speech to Parliament, proclaimed: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain." He inserted this phrase into the speech, written by Lord Hardwicke, to demonstrate his desire to distance himself from his German forebears, who were perceived as caring more for Hanover, Germany than for Britain.
Bavaria, Germany Visit of the abdicated British King Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) and his wife Wally Simson (Duchess of Windsor) at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg near Berchdesgaden. In the photo Adolf Hitler accompanied his guests to the car after their visit.
It is an example of British royalty marrying into German royalty which received some concerns during WWII when King Edward VIII abdicated his kingship to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, and then they visited Germany--at a very improper time. Edward was never crowned; his reign lasted only 325 days. His brother Albert became King, using his last name George, as George VI. In 1937, Edward was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in a ceremony in France. During the Second World War, the Duke of Windsor escaped from Paris, where he was living at the time of the fall of France, to Lisbon in 1940.
Netflix is showing a sequel to Julia Quinn's Bridgerton, about Queen Charlotte who they picture as a Black woman, like the lady in Bridgerton. According to records, this is incorrect. I see that one person has said she was black. One person according to Netflix's Cleopatra had also said that Cleopatra was black. One researcher going against all other proof is not acceptable. The idea that Charlotte was Black stems from research conducted by historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom. If you google Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, you'll quickly come across a historian called "Mario de Valdes y Cocom. He argues that her features, as seen in royal portraits, were conspicuously African, and contends that they were noted by numerous contemporaries. He claims that the queen, though German, was directly descended from a black branch of the Portuguese royal family, related to Margarita de Castro e Souza, a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman nine generations removed, whose ancestry she traces from the 13th-century ruler Alfonso III and his lover Madragana, whom Valdes takes to have been a Moor and thus a black African." No proof shown, only thinks and thus...and no proof of a connection to Masrgarita de Castro 3 Souza, either. (Researched and Written by Mario de Valdes y Cocom, an historian of the African diaspora, related by Frontline: pbs: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/royalfamily.html ; Subjects Mario de Valdes y Cocom has written about range from St. Maurice, the African military commander of the 3rd century, who, as St. George is to England, had, for more than a millennium, been the personification of the military might and the religious ambitions of the Holy Roman Empire - to the horrific story of cannibalism perpetrated on the black crew members or a Nantucket whaler which, until pointed out in '99, had been the previously unknown source.
Here's the skinny on it. "Even though Queen Charlotte’s contemporaries made it clear that they thought her face didn’t meet their beauty standards, there are almost no records of anyone explicitly saying that Charlotte, born into the royal family of the northern German duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had Black parents, Black siblings, Black cousins, or Black ancestors on either side. In 1997, historian Mario de Valdes y Cocom claimed his research showed she was descended from the “illegitimate son of King Alfonso I of Portugal and his Moorish mistress [Madragana].” So he's a contemporary "historian" claiming all sorts of people have Black heritage.
However, King Alphonso I was born in 1109 or 1111, and Queen Charlotte was born in 1744. That’s more than 600 years of distance between Queen Charlotte and her rumored African ancestor Madragana — who cannot conclusively be proven to be Black or related to Queen Charlotte, as art historian Amanda Matta explains on her podcast, Art of History. Some amount of inbreeding might account for these features to endure for a few generations, but not enough to be significant. And with King George III and Charlotte sharing close ancestors, it’s poor logic because it would mean that swaths of British and European royalty, including Prince Harry and Mary, Queen of Scots, would now have to also be considered Black. There's nothing I can find telling anything about Cocom other than "Mario Valdes y Cocom discusses the importance of black female divinites in the ancient world, with particular reference to the African Diana and Isis." He has an agenda.
Maa for the BBC, Discovery and History Channels, most of his work has been with WGBH, the PBS affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts where he is also a researcher for Frontline, the network's flagship public affairs series. He wrote about Alessandro de' Medici of Italy.
Renaissance race card? Of the western world, Italy must be the only country that can reasonably claim to have had two heads of state of African heritage. More than a millennium apart, Lucius Septimius Severus and Alessandro de’ Medici ruled, respectively, the Roman Empire and the city-state of Florence.
In a sarcophagus in the Chapel of San Lorenzo, the one surmounted by the brooding figure of Michelangelo's Il Pensieroso, and on which two of his even more famous nudes recline, is interred the first Duke of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici, called Il Moro (the Moor). Alessandro de' Medici (22 July 1510 – 6 January 1537), nicknamed "il Moro" due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and the first Duke of the Florentine Republic (from 1532), was ruler of Florence from 1530 to his death in 1537. The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. His assassination at the hands of distant cousin Lorenzaccio caused the title of Duke to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.
The Medici, one of the richest and most pope-producing families of Renaissance Italy, had a line descended from Simonetta da Collevecchio, an enslaved or indentured woman who was thought to be Moorish. Alessandro, Duke of Florence, was her son, curly-headed and dark-skinned; Giulia was his daughter, often described as being a mirror of her father. My question is, what makes them ignore the possibility that she had a lover who was black being her son appeared to have black features. Her pictures do not reflect this. Alessandro was also called “Il Moro,” the Moor, though possibly not till after his death. His Blackness may have been inscribed onto his body later by rivals, or by historians who saw his reign as peculiarly tyrannical. Twice since the 19th century scientists have exhumed his body to determine, among other things, his race, as if Blackness could be found in bones. Cultural theorist Mary Gallucci wonders why we care, when the Florentines probably didn’t. Because the Medici are synonymous with European power, and Blackness is unexpected in that sphere? What we now think of as race bears only a glancing relation to 16th-century hierarchies of color and caste, what Gallucci calls “a horizontal multicultural world.”
Interesting but not proven, though it could be true. That doesn't allow people to allude to other rulers as being Black. Queen Charlotte was German, and she was, according to her pictures, fair skinned.
There are descendants of Charlotte and George III, and a DNA test would clear this all up as her ancestry would show up. Here follows a list of children and legitimate grandchildren and great-grandchildren of George III, King of the United Kingdom and his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Their fifteen children include George IV of the United Kingdom, William IV of the United Kingdom, and Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover.
Their grandchildren include Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and King George V of Hanover. Directly descended from Edward VII, Queen Elizabeth is Victoria's great-great granddaughter.Their great-grandchildren include King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover.
Thousands of people are not under the assumption that Charlotte was a black queen because they see this on Netflicks. Even Oprah W. seems to give it the stamp of approval, like a Good Housekeeping seal. This is an example of shredding history's truth to make a buck, and it's not even being done by AI (artificial intelligence but by writers).
It's more like AI doing something of this sort, not people, but there you are. The fear has always been that people will dismember history to suit their own desires of how things should turn out. I see it happening today, and that's why this is quite alarming. There's enough awesome things that Blacks have accomplished without spinning some story that's not true.
Featured on one Black History month was:
Resource:
https://www.vox.com/culture/23712625/queen-charlotte-bridgerton-netflix-real-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Mecklenburg-Strelitz
https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a34950295/queen-charlotte-bridgerton-real-person/
http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/italy-ignore-black-history/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/black-historical-figures-musa-mbande-medici-samurai/
http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/italy-ignore-black-history/
http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/italy-ignore-black-history/
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:dv141533j
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