Empress of the East

by Leslie Peirce

  Even if the envoys’ surmise was overstated, Roxelana undoubtedly felt a great deal of concern for Bayezid and his future. She may also have felt remorse that Bayezid had been disadvantaged in his preparation for political life. He was not that much younger than Selim—approximately three years—but he had been paired with Cihangir, while Selim had been paired with Mehmed, the oldest of Roxelana’s sons. Their public debut in the great circumcision festival of 1530 took place nine years before Bayezid’s, and they had the benefit of early military training with a father who campaigned frequently and, with one exception, victoriously. Bayezid was tutored by an older Suleyman who was winning fewer clear victories. It was hardly Roxelana’s fault if this imbalance affected Bayezid’s actions, but she might well second-guess her conduct as his mother. No one could advise her on how to manage the preparation of multiple sons for the throne.

  ROXELANA’S HEALTH HAD been declining, although just when it became a serious matter is not clear. Her death in the spring of 1558 apparently stemmed from a combination of chronic illness and more immediate factors. The Venetian ambassador Antonio Barbarigo, who had arrived in Istanbul in September 1556, informed the Senate in 1558 that she had become very reluctant to be parted from Suleyman. Because he suffered greatly from gout, his doctors counseled him to spend every winter in Adrianople for the change of air. “But as long as the Russian Sultana lived, she rarely let him leave Constantinople,” Barbarigo noted. She was “the mistress of the life of this gentleman, by whom she was extremely loved. And because she wants him always near her and is doubtful for her own life on account of illness, she rarely or never lets him part from her.”45

  Roxelana’s reluctance to be parted from Suleyman was doubtless influenced by his long and difficult absence in the recent war with Iran, during which time her health may have begun to deteriorate. Istanbul offered superior medical resources, hence perhaps her reluctance to leave it. The Old Palace probably provided the best female medical care in the empire, and now it could call on the support of the Avrat Pazar hospital and perhaps the medical team being assembled for the Suleymaniye medical madrasa and hospital. Istanbul also provided the queen with a circle of intimates—Mihrumah, her granddaughters Aisha and Huma Shah, her old friend Gulfem, and other palace stalwarts. The health of the empire’s sovereign was paramount, however, and so he must go to Adrianople.

  Roxelana had accompanied Suleyman there in earlier years, during some winters at least. Perhaps she made one last effort in the winter of 1557–1558, both to be near her husband and to work on the foundation she was sponsoring just outside the city.46 If not, perhaps she was strong enough to benefit from the salubrious air of the forest that lay northwest of the city, where Suleyman kept “country-houses, places of pleasure and delight,” as Busbecq described them.47 In the end, however, Roxelana died within the walls of the Old Palace.

  On April 15, 1558, the new French ambassador to Istanbul, Jean de la Vigne, sent a letter to a colleague announcing the departure of a great Ottoman fleet headed to the Mediterranean (it would ultimately win the Battle of Jerba). He went on to report that “La Assaqui” (the Haseki) had died early that morning. So great was the sultan’s grief that he aged greatly. “They say that the day before she died,” wrote de la Vigne, “he promised her and swore by the soul of his father Selim that he would never approach another woman.” The ambassador also noted that sorrow was felt by all those who owed their high stations to the queen. He predicted that change, whatever form it might take, could be expected, given that the majority of those who governed the empire were of her making.48

  Another ambassador, also present in the capital, left a near-daily record of his doings from his arrival on March 30 until his departure at the beginning of June. This was Kutbeddin el-Mekki (the Meccan), an envoy sent by the sharif of Mecca, steward of the two holy cities. He came to register a petition of complaint with the sultan regarding the lawless behavior of Mecca’s Janissary commander. Kutbeddin’s suit for the Janissary’s removal, ultimately unsuccessful, met with delay for a variety of reasons, one being an attack of malaria. Due to his stature as a learned Muslim and representative of the sharif, Kutbeddin was treated by the chief physician, who at their first meeting inquired if he had brought gifts for the Haseki Sultan. Indeed, he had, but he had nothing for the Lady Sultan (Mihrumah). The two agreed that the gifts for Roxelana could be shared with her daughter. Apparently, the queen was too ill to notice the slip in protocol.

  Kutbeddin met with just about everyone in Istanbul who counted. This included more top statesmen than European envoys typically sought out, as well as leading Muslim scholars of religion and law. Kutbeddin must have come with a great train of pack animals, for he gave multiple gifts to every one of these individuals and sometimes to members of their staff (six officers of Rustem Pasha’s household were recipients). The sultan’s protection of the two Noble Sanctuaries did not come cheaply, although reciprocal tribute would of course be made to the sharif and other notables of the holy cities. The ritual delivery of the gifts detailed in Kutbeddin’s memoir provides us with an intimate account of the mood of the city and its power brokers.

  On April 4, Kutbeddin experienced “an attack of loneliness” from his medical confinement and went to call on Rustem. He found the grand vizier very upset and quite distracted, the cause being the Haseki’s illness. On April 7, Kutbeddin went to the Old Palace, “where the Haseki Sultan was,” and presented gifts for her to the eunuch Ali Agha. There was no possibility of even sending a greeting to her, it seemed. Next the envoy took Mihrumah’s share of the gifts to her palace and was delighted when the princess responded by having her agha wrap the distinguished visitor with a brocaded robe of honor. “Up to this point I had seen nothing like this, she was the first,” Kutbeddin commented.49

  Finally, Kutbeddin achieved an audience with Suleyman in the New Palace, where he presented the sharif’s many gifts in a formal reception. He was fortunate to get this far, for the sultan’s distraction over Roxelana’s condition had created a hiatus in imperial business. During the brief audience on April 11, Suleyman wore a green robe and sat at one side of a balustraded throne. He remained silent throughout the ceremony. He had become a saintly old man, thought the Meccan, with his thin body and his shining face. In the following days, Kutbeddin made frequent calls on Rustem and other viziers in hopes of learning Suleyman’s decision regarding the accused Janissary, but they believed nothing would be forthcoming as the queen’s illness had taken a decided turn for the worse.

  On April 15, Roxelana died, “unable to recover from the illness she had been suffering for quite a while,” Kutbeddin wrote, “and she was also stricken with malaria and colic.” Funeral prayers were held at the mosque of Bayezid II, where prayers for Mehmed had been performed fifteen years earlier. It was the imperial mosque closest to the Old Palace, and it could accommodate a large number of mourners. Roxelana’s coffin was carried to the mosque on the shoulders of the viziers, the procession doubtless observed by throngs of onlookers. Residents of the Avrat Pazar neighborhood perhaps made the half-hour trek to pay their final respects to the patron who had brought them comfort. The chief mufti, Ebu Suud, a close friend of Suleyman’s old age, led the funeral prayers. The queen was interred in the cemetery enclosed by the walls of the Suleymaniye, where Ebu Suud buried her with his own hands. Soon an elegant tomb would rise to house her in death. Eight years later Suleyman would join his beloved for eternity in a nearby tomb of his own.

  In his travel memoir, Kutbeddin composed a kind of epitaph for Roxelana:

  There are many charitable foundations and good works of hers in the Noble Sanctuaries and Jerusalem and other cities. It is said that she was Russian by origin.… Because she pleased the sultan, he married her and in this way the deceased finally achieved the status she held. She influenced the sultan to the degree that the state of many affairs lay in her hands. She had many children, they are Selim, Bayezid, Mehmed, Cihangir, and the Lady Sultan. As long as the
ir mother lived, these siblings got along well but after her death, discord arose among them. It is said that her name was Hurrem Sultan. The sultan loved her to distraction and his heart has broken with her death.50

  EPILOGUE

  ALTHOUGH THE DEATH of Roxelana left her family unsettled in the short run, the accomplishments of her career strengthened the Ottoman dynasty in the long run. The rivalry between Selim and Bayezid ended in bitter strife and the execution of Roxelana’s younger son four years after her death. But when the throne passed to Selim in September 1566, he proceeded to take the model of his parents’ exceptional relationship and make further adaptations to what we can only call the refashioning of Ottoman sovereignty. It had all begun when Suleyman cast Roxelana as his favorite and she responded by embracing the possibilities of her role with vigor.

  Abducted and thrust into a fate she was helpless to resist, Roxelana made the best of it, generating bonds of loyal devotion and real affection with Suleyman and their children. She fulfilled with dedication and imagination the obligations to the empire that came with the new vocation of queen that Suleyman and she brought into being. Hindsight lets us recognize that the disparity between the sultan’s two families—the traditional one with Mahidevran and Mustafa and what we might call the experimental one with Roxelana—was a symptom of the changing times. Traditional politics had produced stellar sultans, but now the rise of strong empires to the west and the east (and soon to the north) made internal conflict too costly. Moreover, the sixteenth century was an age of great kings but also of great queens, who played their own roles in the international game of thrones, and Roxelana was one of them. The Ruthenian slave gave the Ottoman empire an exemplar of new possibility.

  IT WAS THE consensus of foreign observers that Roxelana supported Bayezid in her last years. That did not necessarily mean partisan favoritism directed against Selim. Rather, Roxelana’s efforts to boost the younger prince appear to owe more to her old mandate to protect her sons—that is, to keep them viable as contenders for the succession. Bayezid had lost ground in the Pseudo Mustafa affair, and Suleyman had grown closer to Selim during the long and trying eastern campaign of 1553 to 1555. With Roxelana’s intervention, Bayezid returned to his father’s good graces. Once his mother was gone, however, he began to abandon caution as he confronted the prospect of Selim’s victory.

  Their mother’s death released the princes to gear up for the contest. Four months later, Suleyman ordered both transferred to posts more distant from Istanbul—Selim to Konya, Bayezid to Amasya—to prevent either from attempting a coup. Bayezid at first refused to move and only grudgingly complied. It may have been at this point that father and son communicated through an exchange of poetry, as the Ottomans were wont to do. The prince pled his case—“Forgive Bayezid’s offense, spare the life of this slave / I am innocent, God knows, my fortune-favored sultan, my father.” Suleyman replied, “My Bayezid, I’ll forgive you your offense if you mend your ways / But for once do not say ‘I am innocent,’ show repentance, my dear son.”1

  Bayezid began to rally an army; Suleyman responded by giving Selim permission to do the same and dispatching the vizier Sokollu Mehmed to aid him. The sultan had finally made a choice. Bayezid would lose the Battle of Konya in May 1559 and flee to Iran.

  In offering asylum to Bayezid and his sons, Shah Tahmasp violated the recent treaty with the Ottomans. He was wise enough, however, to hold Bayezid hostage rather than reverse the scenario of 1548, when Suleyman had used Alqas Mirza, Tahmasp’s renegade brother, to mount an invasion of Iran. The sultan was forced to pay the shah a steep price to recover his wayward prince: the fortress of Kars on the Ottoman-Armenian border and 1.2 million gold florins. For his part, Selim wrote to Tahmasp pledging to keep peace with Iran when he became sultan. Suleyman obtained religious sanction for Bayezid’s execution with fatwas declaring him a rebel and his punishment execution.

  In July 1562, the prince and the four sons who had fled with him were handed over in the Safavid capital Qazvin to Selim’s head sergeant at arms and immediately strangled. Denied honorable burial in Bursa, Bayezid and his sons were interred outside the walls of Sivas, an eastern Anatolian provincial capital. The site was presumably chosen to avoid a train of coffins traveling across Anatolia that could rekindle partisan agitation. Bayezid’s fifth boy, an infant, was hunted down in Bursa and killed, an eerie replay of the murder of Mustafa’s only son.

  Roxelana had apparently foreseen that Bayezid would have fewer resources in the inevitable confrontation. It later came out that she had deputized her daughter Mihrumah to provide him with financial assistance. Marcantonio Donini, secretary to the Venetian ambassador, reported in 1562 that Mihrumah “dared to send to the late Sultan Bagiasit her brother many sums of dinars at different times and on different occasions, and especially just before he resolved to take up arms against his brother.” The last of the specially dispatched monies were presumably to boost Bayezid’s chances at the coming battle, for which Suleyman had amply supported Selim. Later, when the sultan learned of the situation, Mihrumah “freely confessed [she] had done this to execute the will of the mother, who had arranged this in her testament.”2 There is no record of Suleyman’s response to his daughter.

  Mihrumah apparently did not learn immediately of Bayezid’s execution. News reached her in the midst of a triple wedding that Suleyman quickly arranged in Istanbul for Selim’s three eldest daughters. The princess’s “enormous expressions of grief” impelled her to forbid any signs of happiness during her nieces’ marriage festivities. Suleyman was deeply hurt by this, reported Donini, but he never showed it. Selim, on the other hand, demonstrated no such forbearance. In the heat of the moment, he allegedly declared that he had never loved his sister, his mother, or his brother-in-law (Rustem). The secretary speculated that his indignation was aroused less by what they had done for Bayezid than by Mihrumah’s great wealth.3 (This story is only as trustworthy as Donini’s sources.)

  Mihrumah, like her mother, was devoted to the one who seemed destined to lose. The news of Bayezid’s execution, coming soon after the deaths of her mother and then Rustem in 1561, no doubt intensified her grief. But these were keen losses for Suleyman as well. Perhaps he felt a certain admiration for Bayezid despite the anguish they had caused each other. Busbecq had already given the prince’s resistance a positive spin in his 1556 letter: “He deems it more honorable to fall fighting for the throne and trying his luck than to be butchered ingloriously, like a victim for sacrifice, by the hand of his brother.”4 The same might have been said of Bayezid’s grandfather, except that he won the fraternal contest.

  Selim had been an increasingly “inglorious” contender. Donini would describe him in the year of Bayezid’s execution as a glutton become so fat that he could not sit atop a horse. Lascivious by nature, he forced men and women to submit to him, reported the Venetian, including, allegedly, the wife of the governor-general of Anatolia.5 But Selim had one cardinal virtue: he avoided conduct that could arouse his father’s suspicions.

  The stakes in Bayezid’s demise, as in Mustafa’s, were more consequential than any preference of Suleyman or Roxelana or Mihrumah. Factions of the army that had been loyal to Mustafa, some of whom had rallied behind Pseudo Mustafa, could easily rally behind Bayezid, especially in Anatolia.6 The younger prince seemed like the answer to the widespread desire for a return to the dynamic world of Suleyman’s young sultanate. But in Suleyman’s eyes, it was Selim who promised a continuation of the hard-won modus vivendi he had painstakingly achieved with the Hapsburg and Safavid empires. The times had changed. Hence Suleyman’s severity toward a son he had tried more than once to rehabilitate.

  In the month of Bayezid’s execution, Andrea Dandolo told the Venetian Senate that Suleyman was “held by all to be very wise and very just but extraordinarily cruel to those who attempt, or who in his judgment might attempt, anything against either his sovereignty or his person.”7 Suleyman’s dedication to guarding the Ottoman sultanate c
ost him his sister Beyhan’s affection, his male favorite Ibrahim, two sons, and six grandsons. For this, he bore both the responsibility and the personal anguish alone.

  HAD A BREACH opened up between Roxelana and Suleyman in their last years together? To her critics, Roxelana’s partisanship of Bayezid was yet one more instance of imposing her will on the political life of the empire. Working together with Mihrumah and Rustem, the story goes, Roxelana plotted Bayezid’s victory as she had Mustafa’s fall. The reality could never be that simple.

  The late sixteenth-century bureaucrat and author Mustafa `Ali instead placed the blame for Bayezid’s downfall on the nefarious work of one Lala Mustafa Pasha. Once known for his closeness to the prince, having been his political tutor, Mustafa switched sides, as lalas were sometimes wont to do. Moving to Selim’s service, he secretly assured Bayezid that he was actually better placed to support his candidacy; instead, he double-crossed the prince by revealing his plans to Suleyman. The seventeenth-century historians Ibrahim Peçevi and Solakzade Mehmed both considered Mustafa `Ali’s account believable.8 `Ali would blame the conniving of Roxelana and Rustem in the Mustafa affair for what he saw as the decline of the empire; his silence in this affair suggests that the two princes were the protagonists of their own fates.

  Still, if accurate, Donini’s story about Roxelana’s testament suggests a semblance of pro-Bayezid conspiracy, at least between mother and daughter. Roxelana’s and Suleyman’s different responsibilities could, and apparently did, put them at legitimate odds with each other. That there appears to be no record of tension between them suggests they understood, and perhaps accommodated, their divergent duties. The concubine Roxelana had been trained in the obligation of promoting and protecting her son, and that mandate held even when she and Suleyman produced an unprecedented five boys. As sultan, Suleyman’s mandate was to promote and protect the integrity of the empire, which, as more than one ambassador observed, required the monarch’s defense of his own person. Ultimately, for the astute queen, family still must trump political mandate, while for the sultan, affectionate by nature, family might have to be sacrificed to the greater good of the dynasty’s future.