Princess Esma

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Princess Esma (or Esma Sultan), (1778-d. after 1839), was an Ottoman princess, daughter of sultan Abdul Hamid I and sister of sultan Mustafa IV and sultan Mahmud II. She was widowed at the age of 25 and, unlike most Ottoman princesses, never remarried.

During the reign of her brother Mahmud she was one of the richest women in Constantinople, owning a number of palaces in the city as well as estates in the provinces. She also exercised great influence over her brother, to whom she presented the slave girl who would bear his heir Abdulmecid I. On 29th June 1839, Mahmud died at her palace in Camlica.

Princess Esma is described in sensational stories as the typical image of a beautiful maneater; according to legends, she sailed along the Bosphoros in a golden gondola, picking up handsome boys and taking them to her private palace, where she would spend one night with them, and the morning after have them killed and disposed of in the Bosphorus, in the same way as was done with unfaithful wives of her father's and brother's harem, to destroy proof of her sexual life.

Princess Esma was interested in the British culture; she was said to have furnished her palace with western furniture, putting all the Ottoman furniture in a storage room; after her death, all her English furniture was put away in the same way and the old oriental ones taken back again.