The majority of these individuals worked in the domestic service as either paid or enslaved servants.

According to Historic England, around 15,000 Black people lived in the country during the second half of the 18th century.

Racial relations in Georgian England were far more complicated than “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte” suggest. Herman notes, “There’s some resistance from the old guard, though it’s never explicitly racist, again begging some follow-ups about the preexisting status quo.”Īdjoa Andoh as Lady Agatha Danbury and Regé-Jean Page as Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, in 'Bridgerton'

Dubbed the “ Great Experiment,” the integration attempt isn’t immediately successful. The new series expands on this imagined movement toward racial equality, explaining that George’s mother, Princess Augusta, hastily bestowed titles upon wealthy Black families in order to “remake the nobility in her image,” as Alison Herman writes for Variety. (In truth, most historians reject the theory that Charlotte was Black.) As Black aristocrat Lady Agatha Danbury says in “Bridgerton,” “We were two separate societies divided by color until a king fell in love with one of us.” Like its sister show, “Queen Charlotte” takes substantial liberties with the historical record, portraying Charlotte as a Black woman whose marriage opened doors for people of color in 18th-century England. Today, these years are known as the Regency period, named for the window in which Charlotte’s son, the future George IV, ruled as regent in lieu of his father, whom Parliament had deemed mentally unfit. Golda Rosheuvel, who played an older Queen Charlotte in “Bridgerton,” reprises her role in a parallel storyline set in the 1810s. Titled “ Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” the six-episode limited series stars India Amarteifio as the young queen and Corey Mylchreest as her husband. Now, a new spinoff of Netflix’s popular historical drama “ Bridgerton” is revisiting the royal couple’s love story. Despite this somewhat inauspicious start, Charlotte and George enjoyed an affectionate, fruitful partnership that endured until the king’s mental illness violently transformed his personality in the late 1780s.

All together dead