Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. is very much an alternative history, where real-life royals are fictionalized and embellished to create a compelling storyline. Historical figures and events have been remodeled, and this spin-off builds on ’s appeal as a show full of romantic intrigue and high society scandal.
Golda Rosheuvel reprises her role as the current Queen Charlotte, where her younger self is perfectly depicted by India Ria Amarteifio. Moving back and forth between present day and the Queen’s marital past, the show tells the story of the tumultuous early experiences of marriage between Charlotte and King George III (played by
This, and many other elements of the show, represent a degree of historical accuracy. One point of interest is that depicts the couple’s 15 children in the present-day scenes, where it is made clear that a succession crisis has arisen due to the absence of a legitimate heir. Factual accuracy varies when it comes to how the 15 children of Charlotte and George III are depicted, where grains of historical truth have been smoothly tied into this decidedly fictional retelling.
One of the key moments in the show’s first episode is the revelation that the queen’s grandchild and only legitimate heir has died in childbirth along with her newborn son. This is a factually accurate moment, referencing the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales, who passed away in 1817 after giving birth to a stillborn boy.
There really was no direct heir to the throne until as late as 1819; the queen’s sons had fathered numerous offspring, but none by their wives. In the show, the queen laments that her daughters are unmarried, and her sons have only produced children out of wedlock. Whilst it is true that her sons had many illegitimate children, it is not the case that the queen was eager for her daughters to marry.
The show also implies that many of the queen’s daughters remained unmarried spinsters, but a number led just as scandalous lives as their brothers. Princess Sophia, for example, was thought to be romantically involved with the king’s chief equerry, Major-General Thomas Garth, who was more than 30 years her senior.
The queen’s oldest son George became the Prince Regent in 1811 when his father’s health irretrievably worsened. He eventually became King George IV upon his father’s death in 1820.
A key episode of the show features a conversation between Queen Charlotte, Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), and Lady Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell), where Charlotte laments the misfortune that her sons are in love with actresses and Catholics, and that they have numerous children by these women instead of by their wives.
Additionally, the show depicts the queen’s third-oldest son William being encouraged to marry so that he could sire a legitimate heir. He was convinced to marry Princess Adelaide in 1818, but had no surviving children.
The pressure to produce an heir depicted in really did prompt William’s marriage to Princess Adelaide. The succession crisis continued until the queen’s fifth-oldest child Edward had a daughter, who would later become Queen Victoria.
The spin-off ultimately combines a fictional fantasy world with . But in the case of the King and Queen’s many children, the true history seems to be even more tumultuous and complex than the fictional adaptation.