Before Mixedrace Queen Charlotte, there was Mixedrace Queen Phillipa. Yes, I know what the picture looks like. But listen to the true-life description from Bishop Stapledon who was asked by Queen Philippa’s future father-in law, Edward II, to look at her:
“The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is cleaned shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are blackish brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that is somewhat broad at the tip and flattened, yet it is no snub nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full and especially the lower lip…all her limbs are well set and unmaimed, and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father, and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us.”
Not only is Queen Philippa considered England’s first mixedrace queen, she also introduced central Asian genes to the bloodline, thanks to her being related to Elizabeth the Cuman, the daughter of Kuthen, Khan of the Cumens.
