Meghan Markle and Prince Harry shook the table when they announced their engagement. Markle's biracial heritage created much buzz as she prepares to join the British royal family. As her reign will officially begin following her wedding on Saturday, May 19, contrary to popular belief, historians do not believe that she is the first woman of African decent to marry a British royal. 

In an article published by The Washington Post,  historians take a look at Queen Charlotte who is believed to be Britain's first mix raced royal. According to the article, historian Mario De Valdes y Cocom argues that Charlotte was directly descended from a black branch of the Portuguese royal family: Alfonso III and his concubine, Ouruana, a black Moor.

Charlotte was born on May 19, 1744, as the youngest daughter of Duke Carl Ludwig Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen. A German princess already, she was 17 when she traveled to England to marry King George III. 

“The date of my promise is now arrived, and I fulfil it — fulfil it with great satisfaction, for the Queen is come,” wrote Horace Walpole, a Whig politician in a letter describing Charlotte’s 1761 arrival in London. “In half an hour, one heard of nothing but proclamations of her beauty: everybody was content, everybody pleased.”

Published memoirs have described Charlotte as “being of a middling stature, and rather small, but her shape fine, and carriage graceful; her hands and neck exceedingly well turned; her hair auburn; her face round and fair; the eyes of a light blue, and beaming with sweetness; the nose a little flat, and turned up at the point; the mouth rather large, with rosy lips, and very fine teeth.”

A 1999 London Sunday Times article titled “Revealed: The Queen’s Black Ancestors" further investigated the claim of Charlotte's African ancestry. 

“The connection had been rumored but never proved,” the Times wrote. “The royal family has hidden credentials that make its members appropriate leaders of Britain’s multicultural society. It has black and mixed-raced royal ancestors who have never been publicly acknowledged. An American genealogist has established that Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, was directly descended from the illegitimate son of an African mistress in the Portuguese royal house.” 

Charlotte gave birth to 15 children and has been described as an amateur botanist and a connoisseur of music. After King George IV purchased Buckingham Palace in 1762, it became known as the "The Queen’s House." Charlotte is buried at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle — the same place where Markle's wedding will occur. 

Though Charlotte's reign has become lost in the history books for many, let us never forget that we have always been in the spaces they've tried to keep us out of. 

A Royal WeddingBritish RoyalKing George IIImeghan marklePrince-HarryQueen Charlotte