Did Queen Charlotte Hate King George?
Let him be mad, if mad is what he needs
I watched Queen Charlotte; A Bridgerton Story, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I have watched season 1–3 of Bridgerton and I could frequently see queen charlotte as this funny, witty, and powerful woman. She controlled the members of the ton, and all the seasons when young ladies would come to look for their husbands, she was there. She seemed to know everything that was happening. But in all those seasons I watched, I didn’t see queen charlotte’s husband until I watched her own story.
In these seasons every time Brimsely would come with news, the first thing queen charlotte would ask was “Is the king dead?”. And I wondered why? Did she hate the king that much? What did the king do to her for her to always anticipate his death?
So, I decided to watch Queen Charlotte, and honestly, I didn’t realize that that was Queen Charlotte I was seeing in all three seasons of Bridgerton. When I did, I actually gasped.
In Queen charlotte story’s, I loved her. She was strong willed, fierce, funny, and confident. She actually deserved to be a queen. My favorite lines from her were “let him be mad, if mad is what he needs” “I will stand with you between the heavens and the earth. I will tell you who you are! Do you love me!” and “I want to fight with you! Fight with me! Fight for me!”
Charlotte met Georgie when she was trying to climb the castle wall because she didn’t want to marry a man she didn’t know. They started talking in this scene, and I saw how they easily got along well. And it continued for a while, realizing their likes, and that Georgie is a farmer who didn’t want to become king. And charlotte’s responsibility was to give birth to children to continue their line.
Eventually, Charlotte and George fell in love. She didn’t know about George’s illness. George was always away because of his illness. He underwent bizarre medical treatment to cure him. It pained me watching him undergo that kind of treatment.
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She discovered that he was ill when she caught him talking to himself, writing on the wall and then he ran outside and got naked and started calling Venus the planet. Charlotte was shocked, and even seeing George in this state, her love for him didn’t change. He wrapped him, led him back to the house, and cleaned him.
She later went to George’s mother. George overheard what Charlotte was telling his mother and that made him feel like he failed. He believed that Charlotte wouldn’t love him for who he was. He believed that he wasn’t better for Charlotte, and that he wasn’t fit to be king. But Charlotte proved to him time and again that she will always love him and be there for him no matter what.
Charlotte loved him through his illness, she was always there to comfort him, even when his guard was worried about him charlotte assured him that the king is fine and they lived happily for a while and had their first child.
And this is where I started thinking about the question that had been bothering me since Bridgerton. Why did older Charlotte always ask, “Is the King dead?” What happened between the young Charlotte who fought so hard for George and the older Charlotte who was waiting for his death?
Before watching Queen Charlotte, I honestly thought that maybe she hated George. Maybe she became tired of George’s hallucination and erratic behavior.
Imagine loving someone and knowing there is nothing you can do to make them better. You can stay beside them, protect them, comfort them, and reassure them, but you can’t cure them. You have to watch them suffer and know that they may live like this forever.
I really wanted to understand how her love suddenly became hatred for George. But looking at the weight of being queen at that time was heavy. She needed to protect George from public humiliation. How could the public react if they knew George illness was severe? Probably behead him? Or return him to the bizarre inhumane treatment? Strip him off of his title?
She had to keep everything together while also watching the man she loved slowly disappear. Maybe she desired for his peace, for him to be free from the torment of his illness, for her to also be free of the fear of people knowing, the parliament always on her neck, and also free of the power she actually had. Because with king George’s death, power would be transferred to his first son, and that relieves charlotte of the heavy baggage.
I could see in charlotte’s eyes when George would appear and wouldn’t recognize her. She wanted to feel him again, his touch, kiss him. It pained her that he was physically there but mentally gone. She was grieving the George she knew. It was like living with the ghost of your loved one. Maybe this is why she always anticipated his death, to get rid of the psychological trauma of losing him over and over again.
At the end of queen charlottes’ story that is when I saw her close to George and they kissed. It felt heavy to me; how much they changed and how they were always together.
But afterwards I understood older charlotte. She didn’t hate George. She didn’t stop loving him. Maybe she was just exhausted. Grieving someone alive is exhausting, and lonely. Having to perform daily as queen and not lose your grip, never falter, and not show the world that your loved one is slowly slipping away from you, was the kind of grief that used to happen to her over and over.
