THE SAD PRINCESS
Born Princess Nabila Sabiha Fazile Hamisultan, she was always known as Fazile. She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France.
Her father was Prince Muhammad Ali Ibrahim, a cousin of King Farouk of Egypt. In the 1920s, he had a notorious affair with silent screen star, Mabel Normand.
Fazile’s mother was Princess Zehra Hanzade, the daughter of Prince Omer Faruk of Turkey and his wife Sabiha, the daughter of the last Sultan of Turkey, who had been deposed by the Young Turks in 1922, after Turkey’s defeat in the First World War.
Fazile had a younger brother called Sultanzade.
The family (including Fazile as a young girl), lived in Egypt until the monarchy fell in 1952, after which they moved to Turkey.
The name Fazile means ‘Gracious One’.
As a girl, Fazile enjoyed the outdoor life. She was a strong sea swimmer. She was also an accomplished musician, playing the piano to a very good level.
Fazile spoke French, English, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic – all fluently. She was tall (5 feet 10 inches) and extremely shy.
Fazile met King Faisal of Iraq at a party when she was just thirteen years old, and really liked him. He was seven years older than her. However, they did not meet again for another three years.
His courtiers noticed that the King was making excuses to visit Istanbul quite often. There, he had met Fazile again. Even though she was just sixteen, they became engaged.
Fazile was five inches taller than her fiancé.
Her parents were initially opposed to the impending marriage but ultimately changed their minds and agreed to it.
Faisal had become King of Iraq at the age of just three when his father, King Ghazi, was killed in a car crash. He was known as the ‘Boy King’.
During the Second World War, the young king lived with his mother in Berkshire, England. When he was old enough, Faisal went to Harrow School. There, his best friend was his cousin and classmate, King Hussein of Jordan.
Throughout his childhood, Iraq was ruled by a regent, Faisal’s elderly, asthmatic uncle.
The regent relied heavily on the eight times Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Said.
The regency ended in 1953, but King Faisal was still guided by the former Regent and the Prime Minister.
The new King remained very friendly with the United Kingdom. Just before he ascended the throne, Queen Elizabeth 2nd had sent him a private plane so that he could visit her at Balmoral.
He went on to be invited on a formal state visit in 1956 and was actually dining at Downing Street when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal – and started a major international crisis.
In Iraq, there was a sense of disquiet that his relationship with the UK was so close.
The expectation was that as soon as he assumed control of the country, King Faisal would get married.
Princess Fazile was not King Faisal’s first choice for a wife. The Shah of Iran offered him the hand of his eldest daughter, Shahnaz Pahlavi, but the girl refused. She went on the marry Iran’s ambassador to the USA (and later the UK).
King Faisal was then briefly engaged to Princess Kiymet Hamim, a descendant of an ancient Iraqi dynasty. This was broken off after just three months.
Unlike the two previous potential marriages, the engagement between King Faisal and Princess Fazile was a genuine love match.
The engagement was formally announced by the King at a meeting of his Palace Council in Iraq. Princess Fazile did not attend as she was in Istanbul at the time. However, she did give a press conference with her parents.
Shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister of Iraq with the Chief of the King’s Cabinet flew to Paris and presented Fazile with a letter from the king plus an engagement ring. It was a large emerald surrounded by other diamonds. She also received a matching brooch.
As she was still just sixteen, her parents sent Fazile to Heathfield School near Ascot – a smart finishing school for society ladies. Fazile was to be there for just two terms.
The wedding was set for July 1958. The king planned to leave Iraq two weeks prior to the wedding.
He planned to meet up with Princess Fazile at Stanwell Place, an estate he owned situated very close to where Heathrow Airport is now. A five-course meal was planned for the King and his fiancé.
The butler had already laid the table.
The night before King Faisal flew out of Iraq, trouble arose. There had been various rebellions against traditional rulers in the Arab world and Colonel Abdul al-Karim Qasim, led a military coup. He called the rebels the ‘Free Officers’, in tribute to the identically named soldiers who had overthrown the King of Egypt in 1952.
King Faisal was initially surrounded in his palace, Qasr-al-Zuhur (the Palace of Roses). He surrendered the following morning.
All the Royal Family were ordered into the courtyard, being told a helicopter would take them safely into exile.
Suddenly plans changed, and they were ordered to leave via the kitchen. As Faisal walked through it, he was shot in the head and killed. His dead body was hanged in public.
All other members of the royal family were murdered too, including the king’s mother and elderly uncle (the former regent). The Prime Minister died as well.
Iraq became a republic.
The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, said he was appalled by, “Scenes of unmentionable bestiality.”
The Iraqi ambassador went to Heathfield School to break the news to Princess Fazile. She immediately took her engagement ring out of the school safe, put it on her hand and went to lunch at Coppins with Princess Marina and her daughter, Princess Alexandra.
Fazile’s parents collected her from Heathfield and took her to Paris.
The press immediately called Fazile, ‘The Sad Princess’ or the ‘Modern Cinderella’.
It took Fazile a long while to recover from the shock. There were press rumours that she might become the wife of King Hussein of Jordan, but despite suggestions he had proposed to her, nothing came of it.
Fazile finally married in 1965, to Sund Hayri Urguplu (always known as Hayri), the son of a former Prime Minister of Turkey and himself a diplomat in Brussels. They had two sons, Ali-Suat and Selim, before eventually divorcing.
Fazile remarried, to Jean-Alphonse Bernard, a diplomat and author. They lived in France.
By now, Fazile was almost a recluse, rarely seen in public.
She was seen at her mother’s funeral in 1988, where she was distraught.
Her second husband, Jean-Alphonse, died in 2015.
Fazile always remained very close to the members of the exiled Egyptian royal family.
During the pandemic, she moved back to Istanbul, where Fazile eventually died.
Her funeral took place in the Bebek Mosque in Istanbul, and she was buried alongside her mother.
RIP – Rich Iraqi Princess (almost)
