England had a Black Queen you didn’t even know about

England had a Black Queen you didn’t even know about

I bet you didn’t.

 

Meghan Markle, has been in a relationship with Prince Harry, who’s sixth in line to the throne, since 2016, surprisingly first meeting on a blind date, that a mutual friend set up. The press reported on the relationship sometime around October 2016 and Meghan has since been met with a wave of abuse and harassment, including her half sister, Samantha grant.

The truth would kill her relationship with Prince Harry- Samantha Grant

Her sister also claimed that she raised Meghan for 12 years while growing up in California, however, this statement is baseless as her ex husband Scott Rasmussen has come out denying this. Her sister’s actions looks nothing more than pure jealousy and when she realised Harry wasn’t going anywhere, after the engagement, she changed her statement, backtracking and describing Meghan as ‘absolutely lovely’ and ‘very lively’.

The press has been apart of this abuse too and the Prince’s press secretary has accused the media of introducing ‘racial overtones’ into comments on the relationship with Meghan. The Daily Mail, being the biggest culprit, described her family as moving up from being ‘cotton slaves’ to royalty.

 

 

But this is not the first time the United Kingdom has had a black person in the royal family.

Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, from her marriage in 1761 to King George III.  Charlotte was a direct descendant of the African branch of the Portuguese royal house. She married the king at the age of 17 and it was part of her marriage contract that she was forbidden to engage in any politics. She was not considered beautiful by British standards and was said to have a dark complexion and flared nostrils. She had her portrait painted in her real form, contrary to the distaste of the other painters, who wanted to paint her with Euro-centric features. The portraits with the most Afrocentric features were sent out to the colonies and the commonwealth and this played a subtle political role in the anti-slavery movement.

She was a patroness of the arts, a botanist who helped expand Kew Gardens, well taught and very interested in the fine arts.

Unfortunately, though, most of us haven’t heard about this Queen before. This isn’t surprising considering this country has a history of severe institutional racism. But the fact that we don’t even know that this country had a black queen, is sad. We don’t learn this in our very white washed history books at school and it seems like it’s almost deliberate, that she was forgotten in history.