When 17-year-old Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz caught her first glimpse of the London palace that was to be her home in 1761, she turned pale. She was set to become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland within hours, but she had never set foot in England or met her husband-to-be.

What happened next is the stuff of royal history—and the subject of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The new Netflix limited series fictionalizes the life of the timid German girl destined to rule England—and who is rumored to have been its first Black queen. But who was the real Queen Charlotte?

Born in 1744 in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a duchy in what is now Northern Germany, the princess had an