The marble sarcophagus cover of Sir William Hussey, English ambassador to the court of Süleyman II [reign Nov. 1687 - June 1691]. Hussey died of fever at Edirne (Andrinople) in 1691 while preparing to negotiate peace between the Ottoman and the Habsburgs at the behest of his sovereign, King William III of England, who wanted the Habsburg forces to be free to join him in an alliance against Louis XIV of France. The inscriptions are perfectly preserved running along both sides in Latin, on one end is Hussey’s coat-of-arms, while at the other end was evidently a short inscription in Ottoman script of which only faint traces now are visible. The saccophogus did not serve Hussey long, his body was taken to England for burial 4 years later.

During the 1990s Mrs Finkel unsuccessfully campaigned to remove this sarcophogus to a safer place than its present site in the Edirne museum garden.

Click here to read an article unearthed by Mrs Finkel, ‘European Merchants of Angora - by R.D. Barnett’ Images and information courtesy of Caroline Finkel