Review
Culture
Royalty
5 min read

Queen Charlotte’s determined love

Is the backstory better than the original? Bex Chapman reviews Queen Charlotte, Netflix’s blockbuster, and finds a determined love story with a lesson.

Bex is a freelance journalist and consultant who writes about culture, the church, and both government and governance.

A regency queen and king stand beside each other looking pensive.
India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest play Queen Charlotte and King George.
Shondaland.

Regency romance is very definitely back, if indeed it ever went away.  Fans of Bridgerton will be aware how very binge-worthy the Jane Austen-meets-Gossip-Girl world brought to the screen by Shonda Rhimes is.  But her new spin-off prequal has outdone itself.  Since it landed on Netflix on May 4th, 307 million hours of Queen Charlotte have been watched – especially impressive given it only has six episodes – and now it looks set to become one of Netflix’s most popular series of all time. All the fun and frivolity of the Bridgerton world is here – sumptuous costumes, compelling drama about strong women, electric chemistry between the two leads, supported by a strong and diverse ensemble cast, shown in stunning period locations as they dance at elaborate balls… and all set to a soundtrack of modern pop songs reimagined as orchestral anthems.   

Gentle reader, prequals can be something of a curate’s egg – they can provide the joy of returning to a much loved, familiar world to learn more about favourite characters.  But there might be the devastating discovery that the world you love has become disappointingly plodding, or worse, been leveraged for profit – would this prequel be a Better Call Saul or more of a Cruel Intentions 2?   

Thankfully, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is that rare thing – a backstory that betters the original, with more emotional heft as it shows us how several much-loved characters developed.   We see the context for how the Bridgerton world came into being - controversially described previously as colourblind, in this new show race is part of the story as ‘the great experiment’ unfolds; Queen Charlotte is a love story that supposedly leads to a societal shift.   

This is a very modern love story, with a difference.  It remains frothy and funny, but there is a serious focus and insight too. 

While the two leads may be familiar from history lessons, the show opens with the dulcet tones of doyenne Julie Andrews reminding us, in her role as Lady Whistledown, that Queen Charlotte:  

“is not a history lesson. It is fiction inspired by fact. All liberties taken by the author are quite intentional.” 

We all already know how this story ends – and yet as we spend time with such compelling characters the suspense builds all the same.   This is a very modern love story, with a difference.  It remains frothy and funny, but there is a serious focus and insight too.  This is still a swoon-worthy romance, but here women grow in their power as they understand themselves, and each other, better.  Whether or not you have someone to sweep you off your feet (or help you over the garden wall!)  that understanding is something we can all aspire to.     

Meanwhile, many of the men in the Bridgerton world have their own challenges to work through (from abusive fathers to more loving ones who die in front of them), and this show is no exception.  Juxtaposed with the lightness, banter, and of course the love scenes, there is a heaviness and darkness here too.   

We see George struggling with his mental ill-health such that though he has fallen head over heels for Charlotte from the moment of their meet-cute, he feels he must hide himself away from her to avoid hurting her, and then undergoes a shocking, traumatic series of ‘treatments’.  Having seen their relationship from her perspective, we have our eyes opened from episode 4 as his attempts to hide his illness are revealed, first to the viewer and then to his beloved.  His devastating illness is shown compassionately, but despite the empathy, it is still hard to watch.  This is storytelling so strong that it has left many with a passion for a character they previously thought of as the ‘mad king’ from Hamilton who tried to prevent American independence!   

This level of narrative ability is perhaps why the legend that is Julie Andrews called Shonda Rhimes ‘one of the most powerful creative forces in film and television today’.  We live a world where we see many romances on screen just as they are getting started – we see from the meet-cute to the declaration of love or the ‘I do’, ending as we reach a happy ever after.  Yet Shonda Rhimes has been clear that she is not interested in telling the ‘sort of romantic story of a marriage where everything's perfect’.  Each of us knows we are not perfect, and we know that nor (even in the first flush of romance!) are those we love.  The Book of James in the Bible reminds us that ‘we all stumble in many ways’.  But we choose to love anyway.  In this show, love is not just about a belief in destiny, being deserving, or mere attraction.  Lecturing her son, Charlotte reminds him: 

“Love is not a thing one is able or not able to do based on some magic, some chemistry. That is for plays. Love is determination. Love is a choice one makes.”   

From arranged marriage to meet-cute, from working through an unconsummated marriage to having 15 children and devastating long-term mental ill-health, we see a love that remains constant despite the challenges; Charlotte shouts at George ‘I want to fight with you. Fight with me. Fight for me’ when she thinks him indifferent.  

he actress who plays young Charlotte, India Amarteifio, beautifully noted that ‘unconditional love is the river that runs through their relationship’.  Even as George descends deeper in his madness, Charlotte meets him where he is at (frequently literally as well as figuratively!) to be with him.  As fan-favourite Lady Danberry observes: 

“what matters madness when true love flourishes?  For them, the weeds are all part of the process”.   

This is a love that acknowledges the challenges, the imperfection, the pain and the sacrifice, but it persists. How do any of us find the strength to love like that?  We may not all be King George, but we are all imperfect, and flawed – we all make mistakes and must ask for the forgiveness of those we love.  For those with a faith, there is the hope of God with us to help us; the Bible says ‘we love because he first loved us’.  The Dutch priest and psychologist Henry Nouwen powerfully wrote:  

‘our life is full of brokenness – broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God’s faithful presence in our lives’. 

In a world filled with perfect-looking screen romances, the bittersweet depth of Queen Charlotte touched me far more than any aspirational happy ending. This was far more interesting, more powerful, and more complex.  Part of romantic love is attraction and feelings, but also choice and action; hearts and flowers if that’s your thing, but also being a team, wanting what is best for them above yourself, supporting one another to be your best.  To quote the passage from the book of Corinthians and so often quoted at weddings, this ‘Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things’.  In a world filled with perfect-looking screen romances, this depiction of love as a daily choice, made with courage and compassion, is what I long to see more of.   But I’ll happily take it with a side of regency glamour – it wouldn’t be Bridgerton without it! 

Article
Books
Culture
Morality
Sin
7 min read

After the Salt Path revelations I’m liking it even more

We edit our own reality by the stories we tell ourselves

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London. 

A newspaper front page shows its title and a falling sea bird
How The Observer broke the story.

The Observer held nothing back in its exposé headline:

“The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were spun from lies, deceit and desperation”

The truth behind the summer’s feel-good movie and the reputation of author Raynor Winn lie in tatters, shredded by the revelations unearthed by relentless investigative journalism.

The uplifting story of how a couple face financial ruin, homelessness and a terminal illness by walking the South West Coast Path has been an inspiration for many who’ve either read the book or seen the film, or both. The story works because it reflects back to us the life we know, the lives we live. And when you add the seaside of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset, what’s not to love?

But now it needs to be seen in an altogether different light.

The article beneath the headline was thoroughly researched, carefully constructed and uncompromising in the allegations implied by the discoveries, observations and commentary of its narrative.

“… not her real name”

“… she was a thief … embezzled the money”

“… arrested and interviewed by the police”

“… five county court judgements”

“… they owned land in France”

“… nine neurologists … were sceptical”

Point by point the back story of the Salt Path is pulled apart.

First, Raynor and Moth Winn are not the “real”, “legal” names of Sally and Tim Walker.

Second, The Observer uncovered that the couple had money troubles for reasons other than the failed business investment they had claimed. Rather, as a part-time bookkeeper for an estate agent and property surveyor, Sally was accused of syphoning off £64,000 from the company’s accounts. Concerning which, it was reported that she was arrested and interviewed by the police.

Third, it was mounting debts from settling the matter with her former employer, alongside other debts, that actually led to the repossession of their home and their resulting homelessness. Not the failed business venture.

Fourth, they weren’t actually homeless as they owned a property in France, near Bordeaux. While it was in a state of disrepair and not habitable, they had previously stayed on site in a caravan.

And then finally, in a revelation that undermined the very heart of the story of their journey together, medical experts observed that it was extremely doubtful that Moth had suffered from corticobasal degeneration (CBD) for 18 years. The journalist had consulted nine neurologists, and this was the reported consensus. Not only were Moth’s presenting symptoms not what were expected, the normal life expectancy with the condition was tragically short at six to eight years.

Pulling the various strands of its investigation together The Observer thumps the tub about the importance of ‘truth’. It is not acceptable to be mis-sold an idea of truth where important passages of the book are invented. There are both “… sins of omission and commission”:

“The story, no doubt, has elements of truth, but it also misrepresents who they were, how they started out on their journey and the financial circumstances that provided the backdrop.”

However, life is complicated and there are always two sides to a story.

In a response posted to her website Raynor Winn answers each of the accusations in turn. Amid the storm of vitriol and threat unleashed online by the article, she protests that, “… [it] is grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life.”

Most distressing has been how Moth has been traumatised by the suggestion his diagnosis was made up. Along with her online statement Winn has posted appropriately redacted letters from the neurologists treating Moth that confirm his diagnosis and the narrative of the book.

As for the charges of embezzlement, she does concede that there were difficulties with a former employer. Allegations were made to the police, and she was questioned about them. However, no charges were brought, and a settlement was reached that included her paying back money on a “non-admissions basis”.

“Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.” Raynor Winn

This, however, was not the failed business deal that lay behind their financial difficulties and which triggered their homelessness and the Salt Path story.

Winn reports that the property in France is an “uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch” with its own, unrelated, back story. When they did explore selling it at the height of their difficulties, a local French agent valued it as virtually worthless and saw marketing it as pointless.

Ultimately, they chose not to declare themselves bankrupt and simply wipe out their debts. Rather, they made an agreement with their creditors for minimal repayments. The success of the book has enabled all their debts to be cleared.

Which leaves the implicit accusation of not being who they said they were, of hiding behind pseudonyms and not owning their “real”, “legal” names. She explains that the reasons Sally Ann and Tim Walker are Raynor and Moth Winn is really quite straightforward.

In the early years of their relationship she told Moth how much she disliked being called Sally Ann and would have preferred the family name, Raynor. Moth called her Ray from that point on. Winn is her maiden name. As for Moth, well his name is Timothy, get it? Friends and family use the names interchangeably, Sal/Ray, Tim/Moth.

Having read the book and seen the film earlier this summer I was particularly taken with The Salt Path. The humanity of their story, the journey they’d been on and the insights to a life well-lived that it offered.

Goodness, which one of us has never made a mistake, a bad call, or a wrong choice, “through weakness, through ignorance or through our own deliberate fault”?

When The Observer’s bombshell broke my heart fell. Moral high horses were being mounted and outrage expressed. Raynor Winn was being cancelled, literally cancelled.

She pulled out of her forthcoming Saltlines tour, which would have seen her perform readings from her books alongside the music of the Gigspanner Big Band during a string of UK dates. There were also calls for Penguin to cancel her next book, On Winter Hill, set for publication in October.

But do you know what? On reflection, after the revelations about the Salt Path story I’m liking it even more. And for exactly the same reasons I liked it before. Because it reflects back to us the life we know, the lives we live.

For a start, life is messy. Sometimes it’s even murky, full of misunderstanding, misinterpretation and constructed narratives. Goodness, which one of us has never made a mistake, a bad call, or a wrong choice, “through weakness, through ignorance or through our own deliberate fault”? Skeletons and cupboards come to mind.

Then, on the back of that, we all fashion the story of our lives. Whether it’s curating our online presence with the images we post to social media, or the anecdotes we share and the face we present to those who are part of our day-to-day lives. The pull is always towards a version that shows us in the best light.

In fact, it can even go right down to the stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves. The interpretation of what has happened to us and why. Interpreting how much of our experience is down to what has been done to us or is the fruit of our own responsibility.

Now, I may not want to go as far as University of Sussex Professor of Neuroscience, Anil Seth, whose books, articles and Ted Talks see us living in a kind of ‘controlled hallucination’. An interpreted version of reality constructed and calibrated by our brains out of our experience. But there is no doubt in my mind that we edit our own version of reality by the stories we tell ourselves and each other.

This is how things are. This is what it means to be human. Some bits are edited in, others edited out. Some experiences we can interpret in one way, while others might view them very differently from where they stand.

When we feel the temptation to write someone off because of what they’ve done we do well to reflect on our own experience. Then we may well be grateful that we haven’t been cancelled because of our past indiscretions.  As the old saying goes, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

I’m reminded of how Jesus handled himself is such circumstances. When a self-righteous crowd were swiftly wanting to rush to judgement on a woman’s flawed sexual choices, Jesus encouraged those who were without fault to be the first to act. Slowly they all realised what he was saying and backeddown.

For myself, I have always found the prayer of confession to be profoundly helpful. It keeps us grounded in the reality of our own experience and should caution us about cancelling others and writing them off.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,

we have sinned against you

and against our neighbour

in thought and word and deed,

through negligence, through weakness,

through our own deliberate fault.

We are truly sorry

and repent of all our sins.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

who died for us,

forgive us all that is past

and grant that we may serve you in newness of life

to the glory of your name.

Amen.

For our skeletons there is forgiveness.

For what lies ahead, we have the possibilities of starting over.

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