Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I celebrated Longleat House which opened its doors to the public 75 years ago this month.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is a spin-off of Bridgerton — a Netflix series based on the Regency novels by Julia Quinn. Queen Charlotte is rooted in history rather than the novels, although a couple of characters make appearances.

Queen Charlotte conveys stories in two time periods. Much of the story happens more than fifty years earlier than the events in Bridgerton. We meet the unwilling Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as she travels to England to marry a man that she’s never met, the King of Great Britain and Ireland. Fifty years later, we see Queen Charlotte during the Regency Era as a formidable mother pushing her children to produce legitimate heirs to the throne.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story tackles a couple of serious issues from the timeline established by the earlier Bridgerton seasons.

The first issue is based partially in history. How would a young foreign queen handle life with King George III and his mental health issues?

The second issue stems from the alternate history that underlies the unconventional casting for the Regency-era Bridgerton series. What took place in this timeline that placed people of color as members of the Ton? I reflected on that question in my original post on Bridgerton and I loved the answers that Queen Charlotte provided.

Like Bridgerton, this series is visually stunning, from landscape to interiors to costumes.

Season 3 of Bridgerton will begin releasing on May 16, featuring the story of Penelope and Colin. We’ll get to see how they come back from this moment: