Anonymous wrote:The Victoria stuff is all covered well in the first season of Victoria on pbs, which is a really fun watch and there’s a good blog that describes what is historically accurate and what is fiction in that show. In the show, she has a fear of getting pregnant initially because one of her cousins died in an awful childbirth which is why that uncle did not have any “issue” and the crown passed down to the next in line.
Victoria is a good example of a historical figure that was really awesome in a lot of ways and really awful in other ways. Eg she saved many lives by modernizing the London sewer system but also killed off a third of Ireland through her callous and counter productive approach to the famine.

Bumping this thread as I'm getting around to it. This cousin was Princess Charlotte - her death was shown in the first episode of Queen Charlotte show. It was very sad for England as they lost their heir and a beloved Princess.

Anonymous wrote:Loved both shows but I don't get the (fictional) trajectory of Charlotte. How does she go from a loving, very smart, young woman who cares about a lot of things and isn't taken up with being royal to a distant/neglectful mother who is pretty cold and snarky to everyone and doesn't seem to have interests beyond gossip / the ton

I think all of her energy went to taking care of George and trying to fix him and she just didn't have much left for her kids. Obviously in real life she was close to him if they had that many children. Then as George slowly completely loses his mind she couldn't deal with it anymore and distanced herself from him and everyone else. In real life she eventually just couldn't be around George anymore and then she also had conflict with her oldest son over who was ruling the country.

Anonymous wrote:Loved both shows but I don't get the (fictional) trajectory of Charlotte. How does she go from a loving, very smart, young woman who cares about a lot of things and isn't taken up with being royal to a distant/neglectful mother who is pretty cold and snarky to everyone and doesn't seem to have interests beyond gossip / the ton

Well, she was sent to a new country to marry the king who she didn’t know, he shielded himself from her because of his mental health issues, then she found out and did what she could to help, she had 15 children, 2 died under age 5, and she was in a position where it was pretty much impossible to know who to trust. Her firstborn child wasn’t “hers” as much as it was “the heir” and I expect all subsequent children (especially sons) were also treated as such by those around her. Apparently irl she was very close to her daughters and coddled/shielded them to a degree that probably made it difficult for her to let them go to marry. She was also probably afraid that some or all of her children would share their father’s affliction.
I’d think all of that would be enough to make anyone pretty guarded about their life and maybe afraid to love/trust anyone. By the time her husband fully descended into madness she had seen a lot of horrible things and felt like the one person she really loved and trusted (her husband) was no longer even sometimes “there” for her.

Anonymous wrote:Loved both shows but I don't get the (fictional) trajectory of Charlotte. How does she go from a loving, very smart, young woman who cares about a lot of things and isn't taken up with being royal to a distant/neglectful mother who is pretty cold and snarky to everyone and doesn't seem to have interests beyond gossip / the ton

Agreed. Maybe they wanted to leave the door'open for more spin off episodes to fill in the gaps?

Anonymous wrote:This show is very silly, but honestly this TV queen is a relief now that we're stuck with Camilla the Concubine.

lol, true.

Sorrows, sorrows, prayers to the UK.

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Anonymous wrote:This show is very silly, but honestly this TV queen is a relief now that we're stuck with Camilla the Concubine.

Hehe! Who still uses the word, concubine? At least Camilla is a real queen and not a fictional wannabe like Charlotte.

If the shoe fits, wear it. Even if people are too deluded/brainwashed to admit that the shoe fits.

Anonymous wrote:This show is very silly, but honestly this TV queen is a relief now that we're stuck with Camilla the Concubine.

Hehe! Who still uses the word, concubine? At least Camilla is a real queen and not a fictional wannabe like Charlotte.

This show is very silly, but honestly this TV queen is a relief now that we're stuck with Camilla the Concubine.

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Anonymous wrote:Is that where they make up a fake black ancestry for Charlotte to make the woke people happy?

What are you babbling about? It's fiction.

King George III and his wife Queen Charlotte are real people. Charlotte was a German princess with a thoroughly German ancestry. For some reason she is black in Bridgerton.

Just wait until you find out that there wasn’t really a Lady Whistledown.

I know it's fiction but I find the concept weird. Taking real people and changing their racial heritages to portray a world that never existed and, in real life, was highly racist and classist.

It’s all fake. In that time period none of the women would have dared be so opinionated, talking back to men etc. In those days women were basically property and talking back would have gotten you hit, etc.

For many women yes, but not all women were treated so poorly. There were some women who were actually opinionated. Outside of Bridgerton, history shows that Queen Charlotte was like Nancy Reagan. She ran the country, but led the country believe her husband was running it.

This is flat out untrue. Charlotte didn’t “run the country” in any way shape or form. Just finished a biography of George III - and it’s clear that she was a profoundly dutiful wife who almost NEVER voiced an opinion that opposed her husbands views. She was a product of her times. This idea of the strong outspoken 18th century English woman is primarily fantasy - not saying there may not have been a rare outlier but Charlotte was not one of these

Loved!!!! I think it was better than Season 2 of Bridgerton. Loved the actresses that played the younger versions so seamlessly!

I did approach this as total fiction, but to the people that posted the pics of real life Lady Charlotte - she definitely had AA ancestry. I'm AA and one portrait looks like my cousin (who is considered fully AA not mixed - both parents AA, just light skinned).

A few of the kids also had very unhappy marriages so they lived separately which isn’t conducive to a lot of kid. I also think the entire line of the British royal family had a lot of genetic issues— there are so many miscarriages and fertility problems. (Look at Henry viii who had sex constantly and only 2 kids who lived to adulthood.). And of course Victoria had hemophilia on her line which probably makes it more difficult for a fetus to survive.

Loved both shows but I don't get the (fictional) trajectory of Charlotte. How does she go from a loving, very smart, young woman who cares about a lot of things and isn't taken up with being royal to a distant/neglectful mother who is pretty cold and snarky to everyone and doesn't seem to have interests beyond gossip / the ton

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Anonymous wrote:Wait, can someone explain to me the “heir” thing? Doesn’t it work that all 14 of her children would go in order if none of them had babies? And then like, the one it landed on would theoretically pass it to their children? I’m struggling to see her point or why any of them having a baby would be good enough. I mean sure, theoretically, eventually? But surely not that simple right?

Well the eventual successor was her third son’s daughter, Victoria (who became Queen after both the oldest and second oldest of Charlotte’s sons died). Her father had died before them. So yes, any of them having a baby ended up being “good enough” even though she was a woman and the daughter of the spare to the spare. I don’t believe any of the other children had any legitimate children.

Oh, how interesting. I didn’t look it up and didn’t know it was based on anything. Thank you.

Sorry I meant she was the daughter of the 4th son and became Queen after all 3 of the older brothers died after having ruled. Her own father died just a few days before his father, GeorgeIII, and two of his older brothers were king before Victoria - the oldest and the third, the second also died before his oldest brother did.

I found this very interesting. Charlotte had fifteen children and only one of the fifteen had children. One grandchild among fifteen children.

In the show, they had tons of kids, but only Victoria was legitimate. Is that true or made up for the show?

There were a few other legitimate grandchildren - Adolphus had a few, and Ernest had one. But yes, all those kids and only 6 (?) legitimate grandchildren...
If you scroll down the Wikipedia entry you can see the marriages and issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_of_Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Most of the children weren't married off until they were in their 40s! The show claims it's because they were lazy, but I believe the bigger problem was that George III had to consent to the matches, and wouldn't.

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Anonymous wrote:Wait, can someone explain to me the “heir” thing? Doesn’t it work that all 14 of her children would go in order if none of them had babies? And then like, the one it landed on would theoretically pass it to their children? I’m struggling to see her point or why any of them having a baby would be good enough. I mean sure, theoretically, eventually? But surely not that simple right?

Well the eventual successor was her third son’s daughter, Victoria (who became Queen after both the oldest and second oldest of Charlotte’s sons died). Her father had died before them. So yes, any of them having a baby ended up being “good enough” even though she was a woman and the daughter of the spare to the spare. I don’t believe any of the other children had any legitimate children.

Oh, how interesting. I didn’t look it up and didn’t know it was based on anything. Thank you.

Sorry I meant she was the daughter of the 4th son and became Queen after all 3 of the older brothers died after having ruled. Her own father died just a few days before his father, GeorgeIII, and two of his older brothers were king before Victoria - the oldest and the third, the second also died before his oldest brother did.

I found this very interesting. Charlotte had fifteen children and only one of the fifteen had children. One grandchild among fifteen children.

In the show, they had tons of kids, but only Victoria was legitimate. Is that true or made up for the show?

There were a few other legitimate grandchildren - Adolphus had a few, and Ernest had one. But yes, all those kids and only 6 (?) legitimate grandchildren...
If you scroll down the Wikipedia entry you can see the marriages and issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_of_Mecklenburg-Strelitz

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Anonymous wrote:Is that where they make up a fake black ancestry for Charlotte to make the woke people happy?

What are you babbling about? It's fiction.

King George III and his wife Queen Charlotte are real people. Charlotte was a German princess with a thoroughly German ancestry. For some reason she is black in Bridgerton.

Just wait until you find out that there wasn’t really a Lady Whistledown.

I know it's fiction but I find the concept weird. Taking real people and changing their racial heritages to portray a world that never existed and, in real life, was highly racist and classist.

It’s all fake. In that time period none of the women would have dared be so opinionated, talking back to men etc. In those days women were basically property and talking back would have gotten you hit, etc.

For many women yes, but not all women were treated so poorly. There were some women who were actually opinionated. Outside of Bridgerton, history shows that Queen Charlotte was like Nancy Reagan. She ran the country, but led the country believe her husband was running it.