The African Queen puzzle
QUESTION Is it true that a number of our queens had African ancestry?
Two British queens are rumoured to have Moorish ancestry: Philippa of Hainault (1314-1369), Queen consort of Edward III; and Charlotte of Mecklenburg (17441818), Queen consort of George III.
The Moors were Muslim settlers in North Africa (the Maghreb), Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages.
The African American registry states ‘Philippa was of Black Moorish ancestry’, but this is based on a single contemporary description and the fact that one of her sons was called the Black Prince.
A diplomatic report dating from 1319 describes Philippa, the daughter of the Count of Hainault, when she was a child:
one translation runs: ‘The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown . . . Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, and yet it is no snub nose.
‘Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip . . . Moreover, she is brown of skin and, like her father, in all things she is pleasant enough.’
This description may indicate Moorish ancestry. However, it seems improbable. Philippa was born in Valenciennes in the Low Countries of northern France; Moorish influence did not spread beyond southern France. Her darker complexion may be due to a Mediterranean heritage.
Her son Edward was never called the Black Prince in his lifetime. This name was given to him 150 years later, possibly because of the black armour he wore.
The descendants of Philippa’s seven sons and five daughters contested the throne for generations, climaxing in the wars of the Roses, 1455 to 1487.
The evidence for Queen Charlotte’s African ancestry is owing to Mario de Valdes y Cocom, a historian of the African diaspora. He claims her ancestry may be traced to Margarita de Castro e Souza, a 15th- century Portuguese noblewoman, who was descended from a Moorish woman named Mandragana, the mistress of the 13th-century King Alfonso III.
Despite being refuted by historians, it has been disseminated as truth.
Further evidence is based on contemporary descriptions and a portrait. Her granddaughter’s physician, Baron Stockmar, described an elderly Charlotte as ‘small and crooked, with a true mulatto (mixed race) face’.
There was also a poem penned for her wedding to George III, where Charlotte is referred to as resembling her Vandal ancestors, a Roman African tribe: Descended from the warlike Vandal race, She still preserves that title in her face. Tho’ shone their triumphs o’er
Numidia’s plain, And Alusian fields their name retain; They but subdued the southern world
with arms, She conquers still with her
triumphant charms, O! born for rule to whose victorious brow The greatest monarch of the north must bow. A portrait of Charlotte by Allan Ramsay in the 1760s is said to depict her African features. However, none of the portraits of her by other artists, such as Johan Zoffany and Thomas Gainsborough, suggests this.
Charles Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities, dismisses her thus: ‘There was a king with a large jaw, and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England.’
Suzanne Berriman, St Albans, Herts.
QUESTION Who came up with the idea of a global village?
THE Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan is credited with coining the term around the publication of 1962’s The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, in which he analyses the effects of mass media on European culture and human consciousness.
Global village describes how, thanks to TV and the internet, distant events are brought to the attention of the world.
Live coverage of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the Gulf war in 1990-1991, 9/11 and the death of George Floyd became immediate, emotionally charged events. It has also resulted in the homogenisation of culture. western-style beds, toilets, showers and restaurants are seen to constitute a global standard.
Dr Niall Evans, Durham.
QUESTION Was there a German No 1 about gross domestic product (GDP)?
THE biggest hit by Geier Sturzflug (Swooping Vulture), a German New wave group, was Bruttosozialprodukt. This means gross national product (GNP), which is a different means of measuring the wealth of a country.
It was No 1 for four weeks in Germany and topped the Austrian charts.
Singer Friedel Geratsch wrote the song about the ‘crazy’ German work ethic, inspired by his time working for an electrical wholesaler: When Grandpa jumps on his bike
on Sunday And sneaks into the factory Then Grandma is afraid that he’ll
break apart Because Grandpa’s working an extra
shift again today Yeah, now it’s time to spit on your hands We’re raising the gross national product.
Geratsch said no irony was intended: ‘Everything in there is experienced. There were a few who took early retirement, but couldn’t stop working.’
GDP measures the value of goods and services produced within a country’s borders. GNP measures the value of goods and services produced by a country’s citizens domestically and abroad.
Simon Barnes, Harrogate, N. Yorks.
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