Meghan Markle won’t be ‘first bi-racial royal.’ A queen named Charlotte came first.

The engagement of Britain’s Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle set off a media frenzy Monday, with news programs like “Good Morning America” reporting she would be first bi-racial member of the royal family.

As most Charlotteans know, that is simply not true. Queen Charlotte, the namesake of Charlotte, was the wife of King George III and the first “mixed race” member of the royal family.

She was of African descent, and was queen when English settlers incorporated the city of Charlotte in 1768.

However, it seems even the British press have forgotten all that. Britain’s The Guardian had a headline Monday claiming “When Meghan weds Harry, Britain’s relationship with race will change for ever.”

“Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement represents something genuinely different from everything that has gone before. Their marriage will bring into reality what the British establishment lacked the imagination to even conceive of as possible 17 years ago – that a senior royal can love, and marry, someone whose ethnic heritage is not just different to his own, but the heritage that has always been most othered in Britain – black and African.”

The Washington Post weighed in as well, with the headline: “Britain’s black queen: Will Meghan Markle really be the first mixed-race Royal?”

The Post debunked that assertion, after consulting historians.

While Markle has a black mother and white father, The Post cited historian Mario De Valdes y Cocom as arguing Queen Charlotte was directly descended from a black branch of the Portuguese royal family: Alfonso III and his concubine, Ouruana, a black Moor.

Charlotte was 17 when she wed George III in 1761 at the Chapel Royal in St. James Palace, London. They had 15 children.

Markle, 36, said in a Monday interview that she was completely unprepared for the level of media interest in her engagement to Prince Harry, 33, according to the Associated Press. She added that it was “of course it’s disheartening” that there was focus on her background as the daughter of a black mother and a white father, AP reported.

The New Yorker took a different approach, noting it’s absurd to suggest the Royal family is one of racially “pure” genetics.

Queen Charlotte was Queen Victoria’s grandmother, noted the New Yorker. That would make her Harry’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.

“The Royal Family is not introducing complexity by welcoming Markle,” the New Yorker concluded.

As for Queen Charlotte, here are a few other details, from TheFamousPeople.com:

• Queen Charlotte was born in 1744 in Mirow, a town in the German duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz of the Holy Roman Empire. Her name inspired the name of our North Carolina city, as well as its nickname: the Queen City. The county is named after the duchy.
• She was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg and Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
• Charlotte lost both her parents at an early age, her father died when she was only 8, while her mother passed when she was 17. She had 9 siblings, 4 of whom siblings died in infancy.

This story was originally published November 28, 2017 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Meghan Markle won’t be ‘first bi-racial royal.’ A queen named Charlotte came first.."