George III (1738-1820) and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818)

[Lady Jennifer]

Madness of King George III may have been his doctors' fault

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | August 1, 2005

Nearly two centuries after King George III famously mistook a large tree for a Prussian king, peed red- and blue-tinged urine, and died blind, deaf, and mad, scientists are still finalizing his diagnosis.....
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/hea...doctors_fault/

[Elspeth]

I think a lot of the medicines in use back then, to say nothing of the medical procedures, combined with ignorance about antisepsis, were responsible for killing a lot of people. It sounds as though people who recovered from these diseases did so in spite of their doctors, not because of them.

[grecka]

They didn't seem to mind dysfunction. It's only when it was out in the open when they acted the "enforcer".

[tiaraprin]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

I think a lot of the medicines in use back then, to say nothing of the medical procedures, combined with ignorance about antisepsis, were responsible for killing a lot of people. It sounds as though people who recovered from these diseases did so in spite of their doctors, not because of them.

Very true Elspeth. They used mercury to treat veneral disease and I would bet these people died of mercury poisoning before the disease could have killed them. With all the blood letting and the purges that were given to "help" a royal, they actually made it worse as is evidenced by the death of Marie Adelaide of Savoy, Duchesse de Bourgogne. Louis XIV survived to a remarkable age due to a very strong physical constitution. That man survived an operation on a fistula without an anesthetic and tooth extractions in a time where sterilization for the prevention of infection was not well known. Actually the poor had a better chance of surviving some diseases because they didn't have doctors who would "treat" them!!

[tiaraprin]

Originally Posted by grecka

They didn't seem to mind dysfunction. It's only when it was out in the open when they acted the "enforcer".

I think they minded the dysfunction even in private. Charlotte constantly remonstrated with her sons (especially George IV) to no avail. When his deeds became public, how much more Charlotte must have been embarrassed and ashamed of it all.

[tiaraprin]

I see a connection somewhat between Charlotte and Alexandra, wife of Edward VII. Both used their daughters as ladies in waiting and would not let them marry for the most part!!

The intervention of the Prince Regent in 1811 got some of Charlotte's daughters married. However, Sophia remained a spinster due to her clandestine affair with General Garth and Amelia had died in 1810 as the lover of General Fitzroy but in her words "They were married in the eyes of God." Queen Charlotte died in 1818, shortly after the marriages of the Dukes of Clarence and Kent.

Two of Alexandra's daughters married, one to the Duke of Fife, the other, the future King of Norway (by election). Poor Victoria, the most unattractive of the sisters, was to be Mama's lady in waiting. Queen Alexandra died in 1925 and Victoria lived another 10 lonely years until 1935.

[grecka]

Didn't Queen Victoria also do that to her youngest daughter Beatrice? As I recall Beatrice wasn't able to marry until she was into her mid-thirties or something, which was very unusual for the time.

[tiaraprin]

Originally Posted by grecka

Didn't Queen Victoria also do that to her youngest daughter Beatrice? As I recall Beatrice wasn't able to marry until she was into her mid-thirties or something, which was very unusual for the time.

She permitted Beatrice to marry with the proviso that she and her husband resided with Queen Victoria. Beatrice married Prince Henry of Battenberg in July 1883. Prince Henry died in 1895.

[tiaraprin]

King George III, Queen Charlotte, and their 6 Eldest children
http://www.americanrevolution.com/KingGeorge3rd.htm

[rodomjr]

rodomjrHello! Please click http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00000318&tree=LEO on to read about her life... I am new here... I am a deaf light-skinned African/Multiracial-American man and Queen Charlotte is my favorite one... :)

...Hello! ...I want to know why they called my favorite Queen Charlotte as "monkey-faced"??? To me her looks is very fine and she is looking much better than some other Queens.... It remind me like my late grandmothers :) ...Thoughts are so welcome! ... :-}.

[tiaraprin]

From my reading on the subject, many of the English court thought Charlotte to not be attractive and had many names to describe how she looked.
She was much different from Lady Sarah Lennox, whom the King had fallen in love with and was not permitted to marry because she was a commoner.

[Warren]

Originally Posted by rodomjr

.I want to know why they called my favorite Queen Charlotte as "monkey-faced"??? To me her looks is very fine

Welcome to TRF rodomjr.
Our modern Western culture is often accused of being looks and body obsessed, but those Hanoverians were downright cruel. Even Queen Victoria in her (many) letters would write at length and in great detail of the imperfections and "ugliness" she would perceive in all manner of people's physical appearance. Not even new-born babies escaped her withering eye. Of course this attitude was not confined to the Queen but was mainstream within society at the time.
.

[rodomjr]

From my reading on the subject, many of the English court thought Charlotte to not be attractive and had many names to describe how she looked.

She was much different from Lady Sarah Lennox, whom the King had fallen in love with and was not permitted to marry because she was a commoner.

Hi! Tiaraprin, Yes, I had been doing research for 15 years and as I realized more that most of them insulted Queen Charlotte on base her Africa facial feature ("wide broad nose, thick thick and woolly hair textue")...Similar to my idol professional golf, Tiger Woods, who his father is part of Africa, Chinese, Europe and Originally Inhabitant Indigenous/Native-American and her mother is part of Chinese, Europe and Thailand (5 different tribes), that most America media labeled Tiger as "NEGRO" accoring to an ancient law: One-Drop Rule" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule) no matter how decent person he is... And please click http://www.asianweek.com/2002_04_19/opinion_emil.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors ...

"She was considered by many to be dull and extremely plain. She had little wit or intellect. She did enjoy music and literature, but bearing and caring for their 15 children took up most of her time."

Hi! Tiaraprin, ...My homestate, North Carolina's largest city, Charlotte (It is in southwest of Norh Carolina near South Carolina borderline) and early German and Scottish settlers voted to name it after Queen Sophia Charlotte...Not only they had to honor her but they loved her and she was so popular to many average England citizens! A big problems are writers who are so prejudiced against Queen Sophia Charlotte and they tried to de-grade everything to her as possible in order to make her looks bad!

[iowabelle]

I wonder how much time she actually spent raising her young children. After all, there were wet nurses and nursemaids.

[rodomjr]

iowabelleI wonder how much time she actually spent raising her young children. After all, there were wet nurses and nursemaids.

Hi! iowabelle, ...Well, this is an excellent question and main problem that there is not enough write about her life include her native northeast German which she was a German Prince and her Africa Moor root in Portugal/Spain... :o Roosevelt D. Odom, Jr.

[rodomjr]

(Sophia) Charlotte
Birth 19 MAY 1744, Mirow Death 17 NOV 1818, Kew Palace Burial , St. George Chap., Windsor, England Father Duke Charles Louis FrederickMother Elizabeth of Saxe-Hildburghausen ALBERTINFamily: George III HANOVER, King of England

1. George IV HANOVER, King of England
2. Frederick HANOVER, Duke of York
3. William IV Henry HANOVER, King of England
4. Charlotte Augusta Matilda HANOVER, Princess Royal
5. Edward Augustus HANOVER, Duke of Kent (Note: Queen Victoria (1819-1901) who ruled the the United kingdon of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901) is Edward Augustus Hanover's only daughter. It means modern England monarchy Queen Elizabeth II's children and grandchildren are descended from King George Hanover II & Queen Sophia Charlotte!
6. Augusta Sophia HANOVER
7. Elizabeth HANOVER
8. Ernest Augustus I HANOVER, King of Hanover
9. Augustus Frederick HANOVER, Duke of Sussex
10. Duke Adolphus of Cambridge HANOVER
11. Mary HANOVER
12. Sophia HANOVER
13. Octavius HANOVER
14. Alfred HANOVER
15. Amelia HANOVER

NOTES: (Sophia) Charlotte, fifth and youngest dau. of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Elizabeth Albertin of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Appears to be "monkey-faced" in many of her portraits.

Interests and patronage

Styles of
Queen CharlotteReference styleHer MajestySpoken styleYour MajestyAlternative styleMa'am
Queen Charlotte was keenly interested in the fine arts and supported Johann Christian Bach, who was her music teacher. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, dedicated his Opus 3 to her, at her request. The queen also founded orphanages and a hospital for expectant mothers.
In 2004, the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace staged an exhibition illustrating George and Charlotte's enthusiastic arts patronage, which was particularly enlightened in contrast to that of earlier Hanoverian monarchs; it compared favorably to the adventuresome tastes of the king's father, Frederick, Prince of Wales. Among the royal couple's favored craftsmen and artists were the cabinetmaker William Vile, silversmith Thomas Heming, the landscape designer Capability Brown, and the German painter Johann Zoffany, who frequently painted the king and queen and their children in charmingly informal scenes, such as a portrait of Queen Charlotte and her children as she sat at her dressing table.
The queen also was a well-educated amateur botanist and helped establish what is today Kew Gardens.
The education of women was a great importance to the queen, and she saw to it that her daughters were better educated than was usual for young women of the day.
__________________________________________
"History is a lie agreed upon" Napoleon Bonaparte

[rodomjr]

My favorite English Queen Sophia Charlotte is not really first African-British Queen and there was a lot of Kings and Queens of Africa descendants before Charlotte!!! Note: Like Queen Charlotte, Queen Phillipa was not consider attracting to most 14th Europeans, too! Roosevelt D. Odom, Jr.

http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/queen_phillipa.html

Queen Phillipa
England's first black queen, mother of the black prince

Philippa was the daughter of William of Hainault, a lord in part of what is now Belgium. When she was nine the King of England, Edward II, decided that he would marry his son, the future Edward III, to her, and sent one of his bishops, a Bishop Stapeldon, to look at her. He described her thus:
"The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is cleaned shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are blackish brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that is somewhat broad at the tip and flattened, yet it is no snub nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full and especially the lower lip…all her limbs are well set and unmaimed, and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father, and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us."
Four years later Prince Edward went to visit his bride-to-be and her family, and fell in live with her. She was betrothed to him and in 1327, when she was only 14, she arrived in England. The next year, when she was 15, they married and were crowned King and Queen in 1330 when she was heavily pregnant with her first child and only 17.
This first child was called Edward, like his father, but is better known as the Black Prince. Many say that he was called this because of the colour of his armour, but there are records that show that he was called 'black' when he was very small. The French called him 'Le Noir'.
Philippa was a remarkable woman. She was very wise and was known and loved by the English for her kindliness and restraint. She would travel with her husband on his campaigns and take her children as well. When the King was abroad she ruled in his absence. Queen's College in Oxford University was founded under her direction by her chaplain, Robert de Eglesfield in 1341 when she was 28. She brought many artists and scholars from Hainault who contributed to English culture.
When she died, Edward never really recovered, and she was much mourned by him and the country. King Edward had a beautiful sculpture made for her tomb which you can see today at Westminster Abbey.

Sourced from the Black Cultural Archives

[JOY!]

Here's a link to a site, that has some letters that Queen Charlotte wrote to her brother.
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/ex...charlett5.html

it's really nice to read, her opinions on the revolutionary war and other things. It helps give insight into her personality I think.

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

I don't think Queen Charlotte looks like a 'monkey face'. I think she looks no better nor no worse than any other queen or person for that matter.

Here in Canada, we honour Queen Charlotte with the capital city of Prince Edward Island (our smallest province, named after Queen Victoria's father), Charlottetown.
Also, on the west coast of British Columbia, is a large group of islands called the Queen Charlotte Islands.
We seem to have honoured her better than some kings and queens!

Larry

[CarolinaLandgrave]

Thats interesting about Queen Charlotte having African blood - I had never heard that until reading some obscure article online a few weeks ago. I wish I could remember where I found the article. Does anyone have a breakdown on the genealogy of Queen Charlotte?
Also intersting to me are the many references that Queen Mary does make to being a descendant of Queen Charlotte. Queen Mary is a fascinating person to me, made all the more so by her Hungarian noble blood - which, though not Royal, she holds in highest esteem.
And on that subject, was Queen Mary's paternal grandmother in the many who claim descent from Atilla the Hun?