Bridgerton hinted at Queen Charlotte’s backstory way back in the first season of the series. The new series will center on a younger Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio), forced into an arranged marriage with King George (Corey Mylchreest). Though the series is new, we’ve already seen the older version of Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel).
A crucial scene from Bridgerton Season 1 teased the queen’s backstory.
‘Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story’ release date
Queen Charlotte, the limited series and prequel story to Bridgerton, will debut on Netflix on May 4. The series opens in 1761 when the queen arrives in England from Germany, reluctant to commit to going through with her arranged marriage.
The official series reads, “Centered on Queen Charlotte’s rise to prominence and power, this Bridgerton-verse prequel tells the story of how the young Queen’s marriage to King George sparked both a great love story and a societal shift, creating the world of the Ton inherited by the characters in Bridgerton.”
Queen Charlotte’s backstory was hinted at in ‘Bridgerton’ Season 1
Though fans are just now beginning to see Queen Charlotte’s story between the second and third seasons of Bridgerton, her story was hinted at during the first season of Bridgerton. A significant clue came during a conversation between Simon, the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), and Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh).
In the conversation, Lady Danbury urges her adopted son to lean into love. She talks about the previously divided society and how it was divided among race until King George fell for Queen Charlotte.
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Now fans will finally get to see how that all came to pass.
‘Queen Charlotte’ will have race as a central theme
In addition to the love story between Queen Charlotte and King George coming to the small-screen, race, and race relations will be a significant theme in this limited series. “In this show, [race] is much more central in the narrative,” Andoh told Refinery29 Unbothered. “It’s not the only narrative. There are lots of narratives, but it is a much more centrally-acknowledged narrative in this show.”
Though Bridgerton offers a very diverse and inclusive perspective of the Regency era in London (entirely fictional) during Queen Charlotte’s initial move to the country in 1761, that was not the case. To see the character take charge as the queen and watch the culture undergo this fantastic transformation will undoubtedly be exciting for fans. Andoh added,
[Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story] is going to be fabulous because Shonda Rhimes has taken the story we already know, and she’s [flipped] the lens of it and gone ‘what if we look at the backstory?’ You see what happens when a young — true to history —- mixed race woman ends up in the court of the English aristocracy. What happens? How does she navigate [that world]?
