Marriage To The Sultan
Sultan Ibrahim was a known Anglophile and loved to spend his time travelling around Europe, especially to the United Kingdom. The Sultan enrolled his sons, by his two Malay wives, to be educated in Britain. It was during this time he renewed his acquaintance with the widow and asked her to keep an eye on his boys. Sultan Ibrahim visited Bartholomew and the boys from time to time and Bartholomew's relationship with the boys was very close.
Sultan Ibrahim and Bartholomew were married in a Surrey mosque in October 1930 and Bartholomew then became known as Her Highness Sultanah Helen Ibrahim.
In 1935, her picture with Sultan Ibrahim was put on a Johor postage stamp as a gift to her from the Sultan on their fifth wedding anniversary.
The couple divorced in 1938. However, it ended on good terms and there was no bad feelings between the two. This was evident by the Sultan, who continued to add to his ex-wife's spectacular jewel collection, reputedly giving her an emerald on her birthday and a diamond on their wedding anniversary, even after the divorce.
Bartholomew was once said to have the finest jewel and diamond collection in the world.
Read more about this topic: Sultanah Helen Ibrahim
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)