A True Mulatto Face
Kenya Youngblood
A True Mulatto Face
by Kimba Hudson
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved.
Queen Charlotte
* * * * *
PROLOGUE
The mulatto in question is Queen Charlotte, consort to England's King George III. My novel is an attempt to show how a mulatto wound up the wife of the most powerful monarch of her time (1761). When I first heard of this story, my initial question was, "How were her Negroid features not immediately detected and her wedding to King George called off?”
You'll have to read the book to find that out – but the evidence she was mulatto is so compelling that as I began encountering it, I could not help wonder why no one else had written a book about this amazing woman.
Indeed, the evidence Charlotte was half-black is all over the internet. At the top of the list is a description of her made by her grandson-in-law's physician, Baron Stockmar:
"Small and crooked, with a true Mulatto face."
--Baron Christian Stockmar, MD
https://tinyurl.com/27ryc3b
Please note two things about Stockmar's choice of words: first, the word true; second, the capital M. Clearly, Stockmar meant to idiot-proof his meaning — let the world know for posterity Queen Victoria's grandmother was half black.
When I posted this quote in one of the forums several people replied Stockmar was only trying to say Queen Charlotte was ugly; that is, "mulatto" was a term for ugly during her day. But my research revealed its meaning is identical to its meaning today: a person of white and black parentage. The word "mulatto" is of Latin origin and seems to have taken the original meaning as early as 1593. Consider:
Origin of MULATTO:
Spanish mulato, from mulo mule, from Latin mulus
First Known Use: 1593
A mule, of course, is a hybrid, a cross between a horse and donkey. The Latin word for mule is "mulus" and from that we can see how some enterprising Spanish-speaker used it to mean a cross between the white race and black race — mulatto. Below is a painting made by a South American painter in 1780 graphically showing usage of the word during that time:
In other words, all available evidence shows Stockmar meant exactly what we mean when he used the mulatto in his memoir. Stockmar was born in 1787 and died in 1863. He arrived at the English court in 1816 two years before Queen Charlotte (by then Queen Mother) died. As Physician-in-Ordinary to her granddaughter, Princess Charlotte, and grand-son-law, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, he was considered part of the royal family. His memoir, in fact, describes taking meals with the huge brood (Queen Charlotte and King George had 13 children who survived).
Therefore, we must conclude that when Stockmar described Queen Charlotte as "a true Mulatto" he most surely meant she had Negroid features.
Stockmar went on to become a respected diplomat and confidant of Charlotte's granddaughter, Queen Victoria. We have several letters from Queen Victoria discussing political matters with him. Stockmar was not only a physician, but one who while serving as a doctor during the Napoleonic wars, set up a military hospital in which wounded from both sides were treated. The man was no flake given to inexact descriptions; in fact, we could hardly expect there existed anyone better qualified than he to describe Charlotte's features.
His description was part of a dozen others describing members of the royal household. In each we see the same exacting language as in Charlotte's description:
The Regent: 'Very stout, though of a fine figure; distinguished manners; does not talk half as much as his brothers; speaks tolerably good French. He ate and drank a good deal at dinner. His brown scratch wig not particularly becoming.'
The Duke of York: the eldest of the Regent's brothers. 'Tall, with immense embonpoint, and not proportionately strong legs; he holds himself in such a way that one is always afraid he will tumble over backwards; very bald, and not a very intelligent face: one can see that eating, drinking, and sensual pleasure, are everything to him. Spoke a good deal of French, with a bad accent.'
The Queen Mother (Charlotte, wife of George III.): 'Small and crooked, with a true Mulatto face.'
Memoirs of Baron Stockmar VOL. I. E pp. 50
Another argument offered against Charlotte being a mulatto is that that no one else said she was, and that all the paintings of her show a decidedly Caucasian-looking woman. Not so! There are many references to her mulatto features in literature and many paintings and mezzotints that support Stockmar's description. In the series directly below the first portrait was painted by Royal Painter Allan Ramsey on Queen Charlotte's Coronation Day in 1761. The face and curly hair are clearly that of a young woman of African descent. The second portrait has kept the hair but substituted a Caucasian-looking face. The third dispenses with the hair altogether and gives a face wholly unlike the original. But please note, the brush-work is finer and more expertly done in the first portrait—and, more tellingly, it's the identical brush-work and technique seen in Royal Painter Ramsey's tens of other royal family portraits.
Many of the other Queen Charlotte portraits come in two flavors as well: one in which she appears to be mulatto; the other in which she is Caucasian. In the first portrait below Charlotte's hair is unquestionably an Afro; in the next the Afro is covered and her features whitened.
My book is an attempt to weave together all the bits and pieces of the woman into an engaging tale that explains how her marriage to George III might have happened. Since her supposed African ancestry has never been admitted by the British Royal family the book best falls under the heading of speculative fiction. But in the great tradition of the genre, the reader will find no liberties are taken with fact – where actual historical people and events are used, the facts are faithfully rendered.
Finally, the language used is modern. Shakespeare of course did the same thing in Anthony and Cleopatra. His players spoke the language of the day, not the spoken Latin vernacular (which no one alive knows much about). Likewise, I see no reason for my characters to say things like “Hoisted by my own petards, sir!” when it can simply be “I fouled up, sir!” I think the latter easier to read and more fun. In fact, I recently saw a gladiator movie where one gladiator says to the other, “I won't fight you!” The second gladiator replies, “Wait a minute – that's not the way it works.” I laughed my head off – a hip gladiator! -- because it struck me as exactly the sort of thing the second gladiator would say were his Latin vernacular known and used. My dialog attempts this same kind of hipness (and humor). I've translated a 250 year-old vernacular into something closer to our own. Some readers will like this; others won't.
As to literary reports of Queen Charlotte's mulatto features here are a few, after which our roller-coaster ride of 18th century fun and frivolity begins... Enjoy!
– Kimba Hudson, 2012 Atlanta
References in Literature:
“She was undoubtedly a plain young girl with a large mouth, with a rather swarthy complexion and, her nostrils spreading wide, with something of the appearance of a mulatto.”
George III A Personal History
by Christopher Hibbert 2000
https://tinyurl.com/2fxrg9q
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J.A. Rogers Writes:
From Crisis Magazine Feb 1940
“her portrait by Ramsay in the National Gallery shows her to be decidedly Negroid. I have a copy bought in London which I have been showing to both colored and white persons without saying who she was and they invariably take her for a colored woman…”
https://tinyurl.com/33erylq
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The Princess Royal Geoffrey Wakeford
page 110 “her mulatto looks”
/>
https://tinyurl.com/2bhf9re
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“The jewels lit up her (queen Charlotte) fine, broad features, echoes of her mulatto ancestry…”
The Love Stones, by Tobias Hill
novel 2003
https://tinyurl.com/383s6rk
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In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, 3/10/99, reporting Dr Steve Jones geneticist calculation that ‘one in five British people has a direct black ancestor’, it is stated that the explanation for Queen Charlotte’s ‘mulatto’ appearance is that …
https://tinyurl.com/2ax4h6o
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/steve-jones/
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The last of the cocked hats: James Monroe & the Virginia dynasty:
“the small, mulatto-faced Queen Charlotte, whose wide-slit mouth was reminiscent of the rigid demarcation line she set between virtue and vice…”
University of Oklahoma Press, 1945 Arthur Styron
https://tinyurl.com/3ak9v4z
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William Haig Miller, James Macaulay, William Stevens – 1873 – Full view:
The Queen Mother (Charlotte, wife of George III.) “Small and crooked, with a true mulatto face.” (An old playgoer reports that when George m appeared in a theatre without the Queen, the gallery used to call out, ‘ ‘ George, where’s Pug^ …
https://tinyurl.com/3akke5n
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Posthumous memoirs of Karoline Bauer: from the German, Volume 2
By Karoline Bauer 1884
https://tinyurl.com/2bmoj89
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The Princess Royal Geoffrey Wakefordpage 110 “her mulatto looks”https://tinyurl.com/2bhf9re
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Parson Austen’s daughter Collins, 1967 https://tinyurl.com/39gltop
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George the Third
Stanley Edward Ayling – 1972 – 510 pages – Snippet view
patience when news of the death of the Duchess of Mecklenburg- Strelitz,Charlotte’s mother, arrived only four days … Her colouring was dark, and some discovered a hint of the mulatto in her looks.
https://tinyurl.com/29j9k9r
“She was undoubtedly a plain young girl with a large mouth, with a rather swarthy complexion and, her nostrils spreading wide, with something of the appearance of a mulatto.”
George III A Personal Historyby Christopher Hibbert 2000https://tinyurl.com/2fxrg9q
Summer 1760 – A Trip to Mecklenburg
It was seedtime and across the German countryside heavy-bodied laborers were digging, digging while the summer sun peeked through fleecy clouds, digging for what, the Englishman in the passing coach could not imagine.
The coachman slowed the four horses then called out, “The Palace of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, sir – straight ahead!”
Pressing a perfumed handkerchief to his nose to protect from the dust, John Shackleton, Principal Painter in Ordinary to England’s King George II, looked out the window past rows of upturned earth to a rectangular boxlike building that looked to him more a barn than palace.
“What … is that?” he asked.
“The Palace of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, sir,” said the coachman, chest out, chin high.
“Palace?” said Shackleton, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was looking at the same thing the coachman was looking at. Because of his round belly, rosy cheeks and balding head, people often mistook Shackleton for a parish vicar or Oxford don, professions he now wished he had had sense enough to pursue – anything but a portrait painter bouncing around in a deathly-hot, flea infested coach.
The coachman smiled. “Isn’t she beautiful, sir?”
“If you mean that …that … barn,” said Shackleton – he had wanted to say something nasty to driver since the first flea bite hours earlier – “it’s probably as flea infested as your bloody coach!”
“What?!”
Enraged, the coachman lashed out at the horses so savagely they lunged forward in a terrified bolt.
Jolted out of his seat – “bloody lunatic!” – Shackleton grabbed for his easel to prevent it from toppling. Not long after the team pulled in front of the palace. Duke Frederick was standing on the porch in a green Châlons jacket. He was a smallish man with a beard shaped like a wedge. He looked more a French customs inspector than German aristocrat and seemed enormously pleased to see the Englishman.
“Welcome, Mr. Shackleton,” he called in heavily accented English.
Shackleton returned the greeting then stepped out of the coach. He wanted to give the coachman another serving of bile but held back because of the Duke. He tossed the man the agreed upon fare less a massive deduction for each flea bite then carried his easel and gear a few feet away from the coach. He looked up at the Duke and smiled. “You speak English, Duke Frederick – we weren’t sure.”
“Better French,” said the Duke.
“Well, good for you – good for you,” said Shackleton, reaching for the Duke’s hand. “And a most amazing palace you have here, sir. We’ve nothing quite like it in England, really.”
“Why thank you, Herr Shackleton,” said the Duke, chest out, chin high. “Thank you very much.”
A servant came out, doffed his alpine hat and went for Shackleton’s easel and gear.
“Franz will get your things, Herr Shackleton.”
The Duke and Shackleton walked into the palace. The coachman was still staring in disbelief at the solitary coin Shackleton had tossed him.
Inside two women waited for them in the foyer: one, a fat older women in her late forties, obviously a maid; the other, sixteen or seventeen years old – some kind of ethnic mix in a scarf. Shackleton immediately hoped she wasn’t Princess Charlotte.
“And this is my sister and her maid,” said the Duke. “Princess Charlotte, I present to you, John Shackleton, the Royal Painter from London.”
Shackleton groaned inside then quickly said, “And a lovely princess she is,” amazed that he was capable of telling such an unholy lie.
“Thank you, sir,” she replied in a sweet maiden’s voice.
Well, at least she’s sweet, thought Shackleton: And with a little luck perhaps her brother – if he’s fabulously wealthy, which by all appearances he’s not – well wheedle some impoverished prince into marrying her. It was her bone structure mainly – where on earth did she get it? As an artist Shackleton understood bone structure, most especially that of German princesses for it was German princesses all royal European houses demanded. This demand was echoed as far away as Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and beyond.. Simply put, German princesses did not look like this Charlotte girl – in fact, neither did English princesses nor any other princesses Shackleton had ever seen. No! The girl was no German princess – her nose, lips, hatchet jaw were all-wrong. Who the deuce was she? What the deuce was going on?
The girl and her maid peeled off to get ready for the sitting. The Duke led Shackleton into the banquet room. Shackleton was still bristling: how long do they expect me to continue this charade? Gad! Even her body didn’t measure up – too thin and woefully bereft of anything that might help a fellow forget her odd yellow face. What’s the point? Why even waste pigment on such a pitiless creature?
“We’ve prepared refreshments,” said the Duke waving toward the feast on the table. The aroma hit Shackleton like the blast from a potter’s kiln.
“And you can set up your easel here in the dining room too,” the Duke added, pointing to the corner of the room where the light was best.
Shackleton nodded, then went to the corner and set up his easel and painting gear. This done, he turned and faced the feast on the long table. He hadn’t eaten since somewhere in the dark morning and then only a cup of tea and buttered bread. Suddenly, his
thoughts about the girl were replaced by a rapacious hunger: is that sturgeon? And that there – is it actually brisket of beef? And over there – heavens! Kidney pie! You can see the meat, peas, and potatoes peeking up from the little hole in its center – Good Lord!
“I hope you’re hungry,” said the Duke.
“Hungry? Do we really have time for that – well, if you insist.”
“Do you drink German beer, Herr Shackleton?”
“A sip on occasion – yes, I’ll have a tankard.”
The Duke motioned for the serving girl to pour the beer, which she did, filling a large tankard to the brim. The Duke handed Shackleton the tankard.
“Careful, now, Herr Shackleton, our Mecklenburg beer has a kick like a mule.”
Shackleton laughed, quaffed the tankard dry, burped, and immediately handed it back for a refill. He made short work of this one too.
“Another, Mr. Shackleton?”
Yes! Shackleton thought to himself: This Mecklenburg brew is choice – and who knows, if I drink enough I might actually be able to paint a portrait of the horrid girl. Shackleton shoved his tankard toward the Duke. “Yes, perhaps one more – the last one, mind you.…”
But when Shackleton finished that tankard, the Duke immediately began filling it again. “Hair of the dog, as we say, in Mecklenburg, Mr. Shackleton.” He was grinning.
Shackleton watched the golden nectar pour into his tankard: it was all right. He could handle it. He lifted the tankard in a toast: “ Hair of the dog, to you, sir!”
He guzzled this one down somewhat slower than the others. The Duke waved the serving girl forward yet again. This drinking and eating continued for an hour or so then the princess came into the room and took a seat in the chair the Duke had placed in front of Shackleton’s easel. The two men picked up their tankards and walked to the easel. Shackleton drained his tankard, placed it on the nearby windowsill then readied his painting gear. He picked up his brush and began painting. Shackleton was thinking: one beer or one thousand beers, I paint exactly what I see – warts and all! But after six tankards of the foamy stuff Shackleton’s opinion of the girl’s appearance had radically changed: How could he have been so wrong? The girl was as fetching a Teutonic princess as ever there was – just a matter of perspective. And so the Englishman was going along and doing a splendid job of it until it came time to paint her hair, which he could not do because she still wore her scarf.
