Was Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Black? It’s a question that resurfaces every few years, stirring fascination, debate, and sometimes controversy. The truth is more complicated—and more intriguing—than any quick answer. Some historians trace a possible line of African ancestry through a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman connected to Charlotte’s family tree. If true, it would make Charlotte one of the very few European queens with distant African heritage. But the evidence, like much of early genealogical research, is thin and open to interpretation. The theory rests on lineage, portraits, and historical descriptions—but none of it amounts to definitive proof. What we do know is what people said about her at the time.…

n 1761, seventeen-year-old Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz arrived in England to marry a king she had never met. She had crossed countries, languages, and expectations to wed George III, twenty-two years old, burdened with a crown and the weight of an empire. They met for the first time on their wedding day. By every rule of royal history, this should have been a distant, political arrangement. Instead, it became something rare. Something quietly radical. George III never took a mistress—almost unheard of for an 18th-century monarch. From the beginning, he was devoted to Charlotte, relying on her not just as his queen, but as his closest companion. She was his confidante,…