Sir Allan Ramsay’s 1762 portrait of Queen Charlotte in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.Posted on 03/12/2009 10:00:05 AM PDT by BGHater
Queen Charlotte was the wife of George III and, like him, of German descent. But did she also have African ancestry?
Queen Charlotte died nearly two centuries ago but is still celebrated in her namesake American city. When you drive from the airport in North Carolina, you can't miss the monumental bronze sculpture of the woman said to be Britain's first black queen, dramatically bent backwards as if blown by a jet engine. Downtown, there is another prominent sculpture of Queen Charlotte, in which she's walking with two dogs as if out for a stroll in 21st-century America.
Street after street is named after her, and Charlotte itself revels in the nickname the Queen City - even though, shortly after the city was named in her honour, the American War of Independence broke out, making her the queen of the enemy. And the city's art gallery, the Mint museum, holds a sumptuous 1762 portrait of Charlotte by the Scottish portrait painter Allan Ramsay, showing the Queen of England in regal robes aged 17, the year after she married George III.
Charlotte is intrigued by its namesake. Some Charlotteans even find her lovable. "We think your queen speaks to us on lots of levels," says Cheryl Palmer, director of education at the Mint museum. "As a woman, an immigrant, a person who may have had African forebears, botanist, a queen who opposed slavery - she speaks to Americans, especially in a city in the south like Charlotte that is trying to redefine itself."
Sir Allan Ramsay’s 1762 portrait of Queen Charlotte in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Actually George III may have been the first hetrosexual (as opposed to a-, bi-, homo-) King of England/UK not to have had a mistress
Actually, George III did not have any mistress at all. He was a deeply committed christian who practiced what was preached to him and was a lifelong monogamist, unusually for Royalty at the time (and even now) and in stark contrast to his eldest son and successor George IV, who was a notorious womaniser....
Curse you for beating me to it Oztrich Boy...:0
Which if you read my original comment is more or less what I said. The history of the UK whilst very interesting is completely uncalled for as I hold a degree in History which is now very much part of what I do. If you read into the statutes (the unwritten constitution) it states specifically that when the act of union was read in both parliaments, England was granted certain conditions of sovereignty not granted in Scotland, which were designed at the time to keep a reign in the English hand. Prior to devolution of the Scottish Parliament it was one of the aces in the Scott’s protest of English domination over the Scott’s, along with other anomalies of law that the Scot ts objected to.
Actually, George III did not have any mistress at all. He was a deeply committed christian who practiced what was preached to him and was a lifelong monogamist, unusually for Royalty at the time (and even now) and in stark contrast to his eldest son and successor George IV, who was a notorious womaniser....
Moreover, his lifelong monogamy was not only due to his Christian faith, but also to the fact that he was truly and deeply in love with his wife. She in turn, stuck by him faithfully and greatly comforted him as he descended into madness in his later years.
It is good to remember that while "King George" may have been our enemy in America's fight for independence, he did so out of his perceived duty to his own country, and on a personal level, he was a good and decent man.
And just a quick PS, from a popular point of view amongst the circle I move in the quicker we can ditch the “Commonwealth” the better, It just seems to take from our wealth and does very little in return.
The Aussies had the vote not to long back and chose to stay, their decision, nothing keeping them except themselves.
I have loads of family there since 1910 and lived there myself until I was 12, and they have mixed views, but I care not either way.
If you read the journal written by George 111, on affairs of the country, which earned him the title “Farmer George”, you will see the he saw the American Colonies as a humongous Farm.
He had been told repeatedly that the land was rich and fertile, and as he wanted to be the peoples king he was convinced that he could feed everyone cheaply.
This did not sit well with most members of parliament who had fortunes tied in there own estates and if cheap alternatives were found they would not only loose revenue , but control over the poor, which would destabilize the power balance of Britain.
Excellent points.
can’t remember if I’ve pinged you.
Celebrating 276 Years of Bowling Green
NY Times | March 12, 2009 | Sewell Chan
Posted on 03/12/2009 11:22:15 AM PDT by Pharmboy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2205241/posts
Could you point out were England was granted certain conditions of ‘sovereignty’? I’m not being sneery, I would be genuinely interested to know if this is the case. It has always been my understanding that whilst England and Scotland have always had seperate legal systems, they have been united as one kingdom since 1707, and thus, whilst they do exist as seperate political entities, they do not exist as seperate kingdoms. And my understanding of England has been that since devolution, it only exists as a kind of negative or a vacuum officially or legally, in that it is a part of the UK that is not Northern Ireland, Scotland, or Wales as defined in statutes.
The Act of Union and the intricacies of constitutional history isn’t my particular specialist area, so I would like to improve my knowledge if it is lacking...
One of my favourite tales about George III is of an incident when a madwoman tried to stab him to death. The furious crowd tried to lynch her, but he said something to the effect of ‘leave her alone, she’s mad, poor soul’. And instead of being brutally executed for an act of high treason, as you might expect, she was declared insane and sent to a mental hospital. (Although as a constitutional monarch, he couldn’t have influenced the trial’s outcome, he did prevent her being murdered before it took place).
There was a similar incident where man tried to shoot him, and was also found to be insane at his trial. George III was a good man, he wasn’t exactly the evil tyrant he was portrayed as by the American Revolutionaries, although they probably needed a hate figure to focus their grievances against, I would have thought that Parliament and the politicians like Lord North deserved more ire for their ham-fisted dealings with the colonies than the King, who I believe was a thoroughly decent man. Certainly a better man than some of the rogues who have held power in the US since...
The stinking tyrant!
But that’s very interesting that he was faithful to his wife.
I read the article, and it seems to me (as has been mentioned on this thread) that this is wishful or fevered thinking based on very little; but, even if she DID have a black African as an ancestor 9 generations removed, the genetic contribution would have been so small as to have essentially no effect on the queen's appearance. And, moors were not black Africans anyway (as has also been noted above).
Balderdash.
If she had an African Ancestor, it was the “FAfrican Eve” (sarcasm).
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