A Woman to Know: Queen Sophia Charlotte
Prudence imposes silence, and that dear little word 'silence' has so often been my friend in necessity. — Queen Sophia Charlotte
(image via Wikimedia)
In her lifetime, Charles Dickesn wrote about Queen Sophia Charlotte as "the queen with the plain face." She battled "plainness" taunts throughout her life, all while taming her husband George III's mad moods and giving birth to 13 royal heirs. She founded Key Gardens and gave her name to the city of Charlotte, North Carolina-- and yet for decades, she's just remembered as just that Dickensian description: plain, and boring.
That is until recently, when historians uncovered a previously-hidden history: Charlotte's African ancestry. Royal scholars long suspected Charlotte's family's "German heritage" hid Moorish roots. "Perhaps, instead of being just a boring bunch of semi-inbred white stiffs, our royal family becomes much more interesting," Stuart Jeffries wrote in The Guardian. Not so plain after all.
Add to your library list:
A Royal Experiment: The Private Lives of George III and Queen Charlotte (Janice Hadlow)
Black Royals: Queen Charlotte (Joysetta Marsh Pearse)
Charlotte Sophia: Myth, Madness and Moor (Tina Andrews)
Read more:
Was this Britain's first black queen? (The Guardian)
England's First Black Queen (AA Registry)
Was Queen Charlotte black? (Read the Hook)
Meet Sophia Charlotte, the first black queen of England (Atlanta Black Star)
Watch more:
The blurred racial lines of famous families (Frontline)
People you didn't know were black: Queen Charlotte (How Stuff Works)
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