Britain's King Charles during a green energy boat tour in Hamburg, Germany on March 31, 2023. Photo: Internet Source

The document, published by the Guardian as part of an investigation into the royal family’s historical involvement in the slave trade, shows a transfer of £1,000 of shares in the slave-trading Royal African Company to William III from 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in 1689, the newspaper reported.

Colston was the company’s deputy governor. In 2020, anti-racism protesters famously toppled a statue of the slave trader in Bristol, southwest England, while demonstrating in solidarity with the US Black Lives Matter movement. The document reported by the Guardian was found in archives by Dr Brooke Newman, a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University, on a research trip to London in January, according to the newspaper.

A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told the Guardian that this was a subject that the King “takes profoundly seriously.”

The statement added that the royal household would support the project by offering access to the royal collection and the royal archives, the Guardian reported.

Though the palace has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on the document, a spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement that King Charles supported a research project undertaken by historian Camilla de Koning at Manchester University, and co-sponsored by Historical Royal Palaces (HRP), which manages several of royal sites, looking into the monarchy’s links to the slave trade.