Charlotte de Mecklembourg-Strelitz

The Queen Charlotte , (born Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; May 19th 1744 - November 17th 1818) was the queen consort of George III of the United Kingdom (1738 - 1820). She was the grandmother of the Reine Victoria, and the back-back-back-back-large-mother of current the Reine of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II.

The Queen Charlotte was protective arts, known of Johann Christian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, inter alia. She was also a botanist amatrice who worked with the foundation of Kew Gardens. George III and the Queen Charlotte had 15 children, 13 of which reaching the adulthood.

Youth

Charlotte was more the young girl of the duke Charles Ier de Mecklembourg-Strelitz, Prince of Mirow (February 23rd 1707 - June 5th 1752) and of the duchess born duchess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxony-Hildburghausen, (August 4th 1713 - June 29th 1761).

She was the little girl, resulting from a third bed, Adolphe-Frederic II of Mecklembourg-Strelitz (October 19th 1658 - May 12th 1708) and of her Christiane Emilie Antoinette, Princesse of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (March 1681 - November 1st 1751). The elder half-brother of its father, Adolphe-Frederic III, reigned of 1708 to 1753.

For a woman married with the sovereign of the one of the most powerful States of the time, its ascent with kings was rather light. All its ancestors up to the level of his/her back-back-back-large-parents were firmly princes, dukes and counts (or the equivalent) but without kings. Although its 58 plus close relatives included some reigning princes, one can observe that it was of ducal and princely blood, rather than of royal blood. Only 2 of his/her back-back-back-back-large-fathers were kings: Gustave Ier of Sweden and Frederic Ier of Denmark and Norway. Other royal monarchs are in his more distant ascent.

Marriage with George III

The brother of Charlotte, Adolphe-Frederic IV of Mecklembourg-Strelitz (reign 1752 - 94), and his widowed mother negotiated actively for an important union for the young princess. At the 17 years age, Charlotte was an extremely tempting young woman, and it was selected to be the wife of young king George, although it was not its first choice. He had already courted several young women considered as not very suitable by his mother, Augusta of Saxony-Gotha, and by his political advisers. The rumor was as widespread as he had married an young woman Quaker name of Hannah Lightfoot, although later all the complaints to prove this marriage were regarded as unfounded and that the alleged documents attesting it proved to be counterfeits.

Princess Charlotte arrived to Great Britain in 1761, and the couple Maria with the Royal Chapelle of the Palais of Saint-James, London, the September 8th of this year. His/her mother-in-law did not accommodate it with open arms, and during some time there was a light tension between the 2.

In spite of not to have been the first choice of her husband like wife, and to be treated with a general lack of sympathy by his/her mother-in-law, the Princess dowager of Wales, the marriage of Charlotte was happy, and the king was apparently never inaccurate for him. During their marriage, they had 15 children, all except 2 - Octavius and Alfred - reached the adulthood. Time passing, it profited from a considerable capacity on the kingdom, although it misused it obviously never.

Interests and patronage

The Queen Charlotte was deeply interested by the fine arts and supported Johann Christian Bach, which was its professor of music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then 8 years old, dedicated to him its 6 sonatas for harpsichord with accompaniment of violin Kv 10 to Kv 15, with its request. The queen founded also orphanages and a hospital for the future mothers.

In 2004, the Gallery of the Queen to the Palate of Buckingham accommodated an exposure illustrating the enthusiastic patronage of George and Charlotte for arts, which was particularly bright by contrast with those of the first monarchs hanovriens; that sliced favorably with the adventurous tastes of the father of the king, Frederick, prince de Galles. Among the craftsmen and the favorite artists of the royal couple were the cabinetmaker William Vile, the goldsmith Thomas Heming, the landscape designer Capability Brown, and the German painter Johann Zoffany, which frequently painted the king, the queen and their children in abstract scenes with charm.

The queen was also a botanist well tested amatrice and helped with the establishment of what are today the Kew Gardens.

The education of the women had a great importance for the queen, and it made so that his/her daughters are informed better than it was not of use for the young women of the time.

The disease of his/her husband

After the beginning of her disease, George III was entrusted to the care of his wife, who could not itself very often visit him, because of her erratic behavior and her occasional violent reactions. However, Charlotte continued to support her husband whereas its mental disease, now supposed to have been a Porphyrie, worsened with the age.

Death

The queen died in the presence of her oldest son, the Prince regent, who held his hand as she sat down in an armchair in the provincial retirement of the family, with Dutch House in the Surrey (known maintaining like Kew Palace). She was buried with the Chapelle Saint-George, in Windsor. Her husband died 2 years later.

Descent

Ancestors

Obviousness of African origins?

A description of Charlotte by her doctor, the Baron Stockmar, which describes it like having " a true face of mulatto " , inspired an investigation into its origins and a research on its genealogy. Sir Allan Ramsay, a Free trade notorious, frequently painted the queen. Its works would attest appearance mulatto of Charlotte. The portrait of the crowning of Charlotte by Ramsay was sent to the colonies and was used by the abolitionists as a support de facto for their cause. In spite of descriptions of a " face of mulâtre" , the figure of the Queen was also described like vandal, for example in a poem written at the time of its marriage:

" Descended from the warlike Vandal race (Going down from the race of the warriors vandals),

She still preserve that title in her face (It still preserves this title in its face). "

The critics of this theory assert that the remote branch of Margarita (and Madragana) in the tree family of the queen makes any ancestor African, North-African or Sub-saharien, negligible and not more significant at Charlotte than at any other member of the German royal house at that time, and thus that Charlotte could be described exactly like " with difficulty; mulâtre" or like " africaine". Another explanation is that the mother of Charlotte, Elizabeth Albertine, was the illegitimate girl of Abram Petrovich Gannibal, and that Charlotte could thus have been black for a quarter. It should be noted that the royal household itself, at the time of the crowning of the Reine Elizabeth II in 1952 will be réferra with its Asian and African blood in a Apologie which it published to defend their position as chief of the the Commonwealth . The question remains important for those concerned by the history of the African Diaspora.

The Maternity of the queen Charlotte

The maternity of the Charlotte queen to London perduré since 1739, making of it oldest maternity in the United Kingdom. The son of the queen Charlotte, the Duke of Sussex, persuaded it to give his name to the hospital, which was a charitable institution at the time.

Titles

1744 - 1761 : Her Serene Highness (Its Sérénissime Highness) the Duchess Sophia Charlotte de Mecklenburg-Strelitz
1761 - 1800 : Her Majesty (Its Majesty) the Queen Charlotte of Great Britain and Ireland
1801 - 1814 : Her Majesty the Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom
1814 - 1818 : Her Majesty the Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom, Queen of Hanover

Places in its honor

Vandalia
Charlotte, North Carolina
County of Charlotte, Virginia
Queensbury, New York
Charlotte Place, Sydney, News-Wales of the South
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottetown, Ile of the Prince Edward, Canada
Fort Charlotte, Kingstown, Saint-Vincent and the Grenadines
Comté of Mecklenburg, North Carolina
Port Charlotte, Florida
'' Queen Charlotte '' (trading vessel British, according to which the Îles of the Queen-Charlotte of the British Columbia was thus named)
HMS '' Queen Charlotte ''
Queen' S College, New Brunswick, New Jersey (now Rutgers University)
Queens University, Charlotte, North Carolina
Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand
Queen Charlotte' S Maternity Hospital, oldest maternity in the United Kingdom
Îles of the Queen-Charlotte, British Columbia
Strelitzia reginae, a flower natives of South Africa

External bonds and references

Queen Charlotte, 1744-1818: In Bilingual Exhibit (c1994)
The Blurred Racial Lines off Famous Families - Queen Charlotte on the site of PBS
Duchess Charlotte Sophie von Mecklenburg-Strelitz on Genealogics.org
Royal Genealogies
King George III: Mad gold Misunderstood?
Hedley, Olwen Queen Charlotte J. Murray, January 1975, ISBN 0-7195-3104-7
research on the Princess Charlotte

References

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