Queen Charlottefrom Netflix, tells the only true story that the platform included when turning the saga of novels into a series. The Bridgertons, written by Julia Quinn. It’s about life Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and her husband, King George III from England. In The Bridgertons we had already seen that the king suffers from some kind of mental illness, but the plot went through it on tiptoe. Instead, Queen Charlotte revolves precisely around the beginnings of said condition.
It can be seen how, although he has just met her, the young Jorge marries apparently in love with Carlota. However, shortly after she takes her to live away from him, without giving him any explanation. In that time, he tries to heal from her, so that she is not ashamed of her, but he also turns to one of her great passions: the astronomy.
Precisely, in the couple’s first meeting after the wedding, Jorge tells Queen Charlotte that he has been studying the imminent transit of Venuswhich would serve to measure the distance between earth and sun. But what is true in all this? Is it part of the real component of the story or is it a fictional dressing?
Fiction and astronomical reality in Queen Charlotte
The love of astronomy George III it is not fiction. He was a monarch very interested in science and culture and especially he had a great interest in the study of the sky. In fact, in 1788 the French astronomer Joseph-Jérôme de Lalande he said that the king came to recognize him that it was worth more to invest in buying telescopes than in killing men. He put investment in culture above spending for war purposes, something that made him a very special king.
As for the transit of Venus, we don’t know if he was really obsessed; but, given the dates, it almost might have been. At least if we look only at the year.
In Queen Charlotte we see him become obsessed shortly after the wedding. The link took place on September 8, 1761 and it is true that that same year a transit of Venus was documented, although it was a little earlierhe June 6th.
As for what you explain about the measurement of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, it is also true.
The transit of Venus as a measurement tool
In 1691, 70 years before the wedding of the protagonists of Queen Charlottethe astronomer edmund halley proposed a way to measure the distance between the Earth and the Sun based on the transit of Venus. In addition, he predicted that the next one would be precisely that of 1761, so it would be the first opportunity to do the calculations. But let’s see first what a planetary transit is.
It is a phenomenon that occurs when a planet, in this case Venus, passes between the sun and the earth. It would be the equivalent of an eclipse, but with the planet only as a black dot that crosses in front of the Sun.
Actually, the night that Jorge escapes in search of Venus in one of his attacks, he does not observe the transit, but the planet in solitude. To see the transit, he would have had to do it during the day and with his eyes protected so as not to damage them by staring at the Sun. Already in the twelfth century Sunglasses did exist, so even without as much knowledge about eye damage, it wouldn’t have been too far-fetched.
Now, going back to the subject of distances, as Halley well calculated, the transit of Venus is very useful to make parallax calculations. That is, the angular deviation of the apparent position of an object, depending on the chosen point of view. In this case, we know that Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun, so the silhouette of her disk can be seen with a telescope with a dark filter. The circular contour of the Sun, therefore, offers a reference for measuring the parallax of Venus and deducing the parallax of the Sun.
To do this, several astronomers are placed at great distances. Everyone watches the traffic at the same time and they record the exact time of entry and exit of Venus through the solar disk. Then, through the combination of their time measurements, which will be different for each observer, they can calculate the parallax and, with it, deduce the Earth-Sun distance.
Therefore, King George would have needed some help from other parts of the world to make his calculations. If not, he would have been just another observer. What is clear is that Queen Charlotte It has a lot of true history. Not just when it comes to the King and his mental illness.