Sultan Murad V and the Confession Album
The former Sultan Murad V had spent the morning in his study, where he had been busy sorting through the last of the boxes containing his private papers; he had burnt a good many letters and documents, and filed others away. Having felt the need to set his affairs in order, he had spent a lot of time during the winter cataloguing the large and valuable collection of rare books in his much-prized library and organising his musical compositions into bound volumes. However, he had left the mammoth task of dealing with his private papers to the very end. There had been so much to sift through; every sheet of paper had brought back its own special memory, and every time a new box was opened Murad had stopped to reminisce about the past. As a result, the exercise was taking far longer than he had anticipated. Determined to finish, he lifted off the lid of yet another box. This one was labelled ‘Souvenirs of London’.
Murad had visited London only once. In the summer of 1867, when he accompanied his uncle Sultan Abdülaziz on his state visit to Europe. What an exciting few weeks it had been! There had been countless balls, concerts, lavish dinners and receptions, all of which he had thoroughly enjoyed. Murad smiled to himself as he remembered dancing the quadrille with Princess Louise, the vivacious and enchanting daughter of Queen Victoria. He could still remember the Princess’s infectious laugh, her quick wit and the touch of her white kid glove in one of his hands as he rested the other lightly on her bare shoulder.
Murad peered into the box and rummaged through the items inside. A small formal photograph in an ebony frame lay on top, taken of him in one of the drawing rooms at Buckingham Palace. There were programmes from each of the concerts he had attended at Covent Garden, the Crystal Palace and the Guildhall. A folded sheet of yellowing paper detailing the official itinerary of the visit to Portsmouth where following a Naval Review of the fleet, Queen Victoria had invested the Sultan with the Order of the Garter on board the Royal Yacht. Some visiting cards and a few tokens, gifts from ladies of the court, were also in the box. 
These ladies had been captivated by the mystery and allure that surrounded this handsome, surprisingly enlightened Crown Prince from the Orient, becoming spellbound by his dark, trusting eyes, his soft, gentle voice and his impeccably refined manners. Then he noticed the leather bound album lying at the bottom of the box. It had been a gift from Princess Louise. That popular drawing room amusement of the time – a ‘Confession Album’.
Murad lifted it out carefully. The princess had written her answers on the first page of the album in her confident swirling hand, and his host on that entertaining evening at Marlborough House, the Prince of Wales, had persuaded Murad to do the same. Recording their innermost thoughts and feelings as a keepsake in this manner had been the culmination of a mild flirtation that Murad and Louise had both enjoyed during the state visit.
Murad put on his spectacles and read both sets of answers, smiling to himself as he did so. It struck him immediately how the answers penned by his younger self brimmed with so much self-confidence, such great optimism and were filled with so much passion. “I wonder how my responses would differ if I wrote them today?” he pondered. He picked up a pencil, turned to the first blank page and began to complete the questionnaire for a second time…
Murad put down the pencil, closed the album and replaced it in the box. Then he sat down and looked wistfully out of the window at the glistening blue waters of the Bosphorus. He would burn the Confession Album – it would be of no interest to anyone else after he was gone…
To learn more about Sultan Murad V and his family, read The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus! And to find out more about the author Ayşe Osmanoğlu, the Ottoman Dynasty or the book itself, please visit www.ayseosmanoglu.com
