What are Islamic Sultans doing on a 16th century wall in Cheshire? I was intrigued to hear of the discovery of a long lost wall painting and its recent restoration at Adlington Hall. The fact that it depicts some of the more notorious Sultans of the Ottoman Empire should perhaps not be as startling as it first seems.
New alliances in 16th century England
If you are familiar with Hans Holbein’s famous portrait of The Ambassadors in the National Gallery, you may not know that it marks an important step in England’s flirtation with the Islamic world. This also links it directly to a wall painting at Adlington Hall, only discovered in 2018, which chronicles our relationship with the Ottoman sultans - not entirely what you expect from a country house in Cheshire.
Every schoolchild knows that the 16th century is a time of huge change on these shores. Henry VIII’s Reformation in the 1530s put him directly at odds with the Pope by allowing the King to appropriate Rome’s power over the English church. One side effect was to make Henry seek allies against the Hapsburgs who controlled the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. The Ambassadors depicts the gorgeously attired envoys of France, here in 1533 to broker a deal between England, France and the Ottoman Empire. Henry failed to pursue this potential alliance, he had other things on his mind after secretly marring Anne Boleyn at the start of the year.
Yum yum, sugar from North Africa
By the time Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, English traders were busy in the Barbary states of North Africa, modern day Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Elizabeth’s addiction to sugar and terrible teeth – ” black (a fault the English seem to suffer from because of their great use of sugar)” explained contemporary traveller, Paul Hentzner, - were thanks to imports from Morocco. The fact that Christianity outlawed trade with Muslim states was little disincentive to enterprising Elizabethan merchants. When Elizabeth was officially excommunicated by Pope Pius V in 1570, there was even less to hold them back. In Morocco, Elizabeth had a head start because Hasan Ali, the Muslim Chief Eunuch of Algiers, had started out in life as Mr Samson Rowlie of Great Yarmouth. She began a correspondence with the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul while her envoy, William Harborne, negotiated favourable trade terms for English merchants in 1581. By 1599, she was sending gifts, including a clockwork organ, to Sultan Mehmet III which wowed him with its artistry and sophistication.
The Leghs abroad
Now what has the home of the Legh family in Cheshire to do with all this international commerce and diplomacy? The Leghs have lived at Adlington Hall since the 14th century and are still there today. They had played their part in local and national affairs, fighting at Agincourt and in the Wars of the Roses and that sort of thing. Sir Urian Legh was at the Siege of Cadiz with the Earl of Essex in 1596, when thirty-eight ‘poor wretched Turks” who had been “gally-slaves” swam over to the victorious English ships. Hakluyt described how the English managed “to apparel them, and to furnish them with money, and all other necessaries, and to bestow on them a barke and a Pilot to see them freely and safely conveied to the Barbary”.
The glory of Sir Urian’s home at Adlington is the Great Hall, built by his father Thomas Legh in around 1581. Its hammerbeam roof, the carved high table canopy at one end and the 17th century organ at the other combine to make the Great Hall one of the most exceptional rooms in the country. In the 19th century, an accident during an energetic game of badminton is supposed to have inadvertently revealed 16th century wall paintings of classical subjects. But it seems that this was not the full extent of the earlier decoration of the Great Hall. In 2018, restoration work revealed a frieze in what was once a gallery, now hidden by later changes to the building. The frieze depicts the heads of 16th and 17th Ottoman Sultans. It was once much more extensive, but the surviving fragments include Sultans from Suleiman, murdered by his brother Musa in 1405, to Mehmed III who died in 1603, although the four rulers from Mehmed II to Suleiman the Magnificent are missing. The portraits can be accurately dated to the mid-17th century because they are copied from a detailed history published by Richard Knolles in 1603: The General Historie of the Turkes, from the first beginning of that Nation to the rising of the Othoman Familie. Editions of Knolles book published after 1640 had different illustrations and Sarah Harris, curator at Adlington confirms that there was a copy of the book in the Legh's library.
Despite Sir Urian’s possible encounters at Cadiz, the Leghs interest in the rulers of the Islamic world must have been entirely topical. The inclusion of the Sultans in the decorative scheme for the hall reflects a national pride in the far flung allies of the new Protestant nation and the wish of the Legh family to demonstrate their worldliness. You just have to look around the Great Hall, you can see that this was a well connected family - heraldic emblems carved into the canopy show their links to all the great families of Cheshire - and a cultured family - murals of St Cecilia and soprano, Arabella Hunt, flank the organ - but also an educated family - why else would the story of Troy be spelled out on the walls? Throw the Sultans into the decorative mix and the Leghs are clearly telling us and their guests how cosmopolitan they are.
Sadly, it’s impossible for visitors to Adlington to see the Sultans (without a long ladder and a torch) because of the way the room has been reconfigured in later centuries. Just knowing they are there is a reminder that England’s relationships with the wider world have not been held in check by differences of religion and race. Perhaps the Adlington frieze is also one way for British Muslims today to connect with a piece of our shared past.
