Royal Subject: Portraits of Queen Charlotte

Product Information

George’s illness took a toll on his wife and children, too. As novelist and court attendant Fanny Burney recorded in her diary, Charlotte repeatedly asked, “What will become of me?” Her “desponding” words “implied such complicated apprehensions,” Burney wrote. By 1789, Charlotte’s hair had turned white from stress. She clashed with Prince George as he rallied to be appointed regent in his father’s stead and only reconciled with her son in 1791, by which point the king had recovered. Despite this somewhat inauspicious start, Charlotte and George enjoyed an affectionate, fruitful partnership that endured until the king’s mental illness violently transformed his personality in the late 1780s. Now, a new spinoff of Netflix’s popular historical drama “ Bridgerton” is revisiting the royal couple’s love story. Titled “ Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” the six-episode limited series stars India Amarteifio as the young queen and Corey Mylchreest as her husband. I don’t think a prisoner could wish more ardently for his liberty than I wish to be rid of my burden and see the end of my campaign. I would be happy if I knew this was the last time,” she wrote in a 1780 letter while pregnant with her 14th child, Prince Alfred. Though she spoke no English and had never met her husband before her wedding day, Charlotte was now Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Everyone wanted to greet the new king and queen: At their coronation, so many well-wishers crowded them that it took two hours to for their procession to make it from the street into Westminster Abbey. Soon, Charlotte had her first child, a daughter. She would go on to bear 15 children during her long marriage. Were Queen Charlotte and King George in love?

Less than a year after the marriage, on 12 August 1762, the queen gave birth to her first child, George, Prince of Wales. In the course of their marriage, the couple became the parents of 15 children, [10] all but two of whom ( Octavius and Alfred) survived into adulthood. [11] [12] [13] Allan Ramsay became one of the “Principal Painters in Ordinary” for King George III, a position he reportedly started from 1761 to his death in 1784.

Painting by Benjamin West, with the Royal family, receiving the Duchess of York. Untraced (H. von Erffa & A. Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, 1986, no.576). Related to the painting attributed to Richard Livesay at Upton House, see 1787 above. Painting attributed to Johann Zoffany, a standing version of the 1771 composition. Herrenhausen. With a companion piece of the King, both of high quality.

The portrait of Queen Charlotte Sophia, consort of George III, by Ramsay clearly shows a Negro strain. Horace Walpole, who saw her, wrote of her, “nostrils spreading too wide; mouth has the same fault.” L-R, ‘Queen Charlotte Walks in Her Garden’ by B. Graham Weathers, Jr., Charlotte, NC; statue in Queen Square, London, UK; statue at Charlotte Douglas International Airport by Raymond KaskeyThe scene shows the family are resting during a walk in the park, the over-excited children vying for the attention of a favourite uncle, Ernst. Charlotte wishes to show off her doll; William, held affectionately round the waist, seeks generally to monopolise and must be pushed aside by his mother so that she can get a word in edgeways. Karl watches indulgently from the sidelines. The whole scene breathes the spirit of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose ideas concerning the purity and innate goodness of natural inclinations and affections were popular in enlightened circles in England and Germany. In later life Prince Karl instigated a Rousseauesque festival for the local population in his picturesque English garden at Hohenzieritz, near Neustrelitz. It is not well-documented how widespread the belief in or attention to Roger’s claims were, as Queen Charlotte had little relevance to 20th century Americans and his work had little exposure among white audiences. However, the interest was likely higher in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, as white elites had been using her as a symbolic matriarch of the city, and had consistently used her as such as part of an agenda of white supremacy throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Gregory states that whites had been countering the claims about Charlotte since at least 1934, but offers evidence that does not support this assertion.