Page "Mehmed III" Paragraph 6

In 1599, the third year of Mehmed III's reign, Queen Elizabeth I sent a convoy of gifts to the Ottoman court.

These gifts were originally intended for the sultan's predecessor, Murad III, who had died before they had arrived.

Included in these gifts was a large jewel-studded clockwork organ that was assembled on the slope of the Royal Private Garden by a team of engineers including Thomas Dallam.

The organ took many weeks to complete and featured dancing sculptures such as a flock of blackbirds that sung shook their wings at the end of the music.

The musical clock organ was destroyed by the succeeding sultan Ahmed I.

Also among the English gifts was a ceremonial coach, accompanied by a letter from the Queen to Mehmed's mother, Walide Safiye.

These gifts were intended to cement relations between the two countries, building on the trade agreement signed in 1581 that gave English merchants priority in the Ottoman region.

Under the looming threat of Spanish military presence, England was eager to secure an alliance with the Ottomans, the two nations together having the capability to divide the power.

Elizabeth's gifts arrived in a large 27 gun merchantman ship that Mehmed personally inspected, a clear display of English maritime strength that would prompt him to build up his fleet over the following years of his reign.

The Anglo-Ottoman alliance would never see consummation however, with relations between the nations growing stagnant due to anti-European sentiments reaped from the worsening Austro-Ottoman War and the deaths of Walide Safiye's interpreter and the pro-English chief Hasan Pasha.