I’ll admit that those of us who watch all things royal were rather taken with the marriage of Meghan Markle to Prince Harry this last week. Granted, on my part not enough to get up in the middle of the night to watch the wedding on television. But many of us were pleased with the fact that an American with an African-American mother married Prince Harry of the U.K.
There’s been much in the news about an earlier royal – a Queen of England who was said to have African ancestry also. Queen Charlotte reigned in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and she ruled from the time she married King George III in 1761 until her death in 1818. Granted… One must take the ancestry with a bit of skepticism, as the story seems to be based on rumors of period. But it’s still interesting.
There’s an excellent article about the subject published at InStyle.com. Following is a teaser from that article.
The nitty gritty of the genealogy suggests that one of Charlotte’s ancestors, King Afonso III of Portugal, who reigned in the 13th century, may have had a black mistress named Madragana—meaning the Queen had to go back five centuries to trace her African lineage. Charlotte’s skin tone was on the fair side, however legend has it that the Scottish painter Allan Ramsay emphasized her black features for his portraits as a kind of protest of against the slave trade.
Read the full article at InStyle.com
