“The word ‘blackamoor’ in Shakespeare’s time meant Muslim,” Loomba said. In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, academic Ania Loomba said that the assumption that Charlotte was Black because her ancestry included descriptions of “moors” relies on an inaccurate understanding of history. However, other historians are doubtful that this proves that Charlotte was Black or of mixed-race descent.

While Rogers posited this to confront the problematic belief in a “pure white race,” the theory was revisited by historian historian Mario De Valdes y Cocom in a 1997 piece for PBS Frontline (which was later edited due to outdated and offensive language), where he makes the case that Charlotte was Black because she was a direct descendant of Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Black branch of the Portuguese royal house through Margarita de Castro e Souza, whom The Guardian reports was “a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman nine generations removed, whose ancestry she traces from the 13th-century ruler Alfonso III and his lover Madragana, whom Valdes takes to have been a Moor and thus a black African.” Read more: From Bridgerton to Sanditon, We Can’t Quit the Regency Era

Both Charlottes face challenges-the older Charlotte, despite having given birth to 13 living heirs, has no legitimate grandchildren to ensure that their bloodline endures, while the younger Charlotte must navigate a new country, the mysteries of marriage with a contrary husband, and perhaps most pressing, the tensions that arise with her interracial marriage, which not only makes her the first Black royal, but also leads to the integration of the “ton,” or British high society. In the series, which jumps between the early years of Charlotte and George’s marriage during the early Georgian period (around the 1760s) and the Regency era (the early 1800s) of Bridgerton, viewers get a glimpse of two different Charlottes: the dynamic and grandiose Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) they know from previous installments of Bridgerton seasons, and the fiercely independent 17-year-old German Princess Charlotte (India Amarteifio), who’s set to wed George III, the King of England (Corey Mylchreest).

Charlotte nebres book