Empress of the East

by Leslie Peirce

  It was no coincidence that stricter moral regulations were imposed by Suleyman’s new law code, issued around 1540. New mandates required stepped-up surveillance, with local people sometimes coerced to report on one another.9 Partisans of the shah were known as “red-heads” for the color of their headgear, and the whole episode is reminiscent of the “red scare” of the McCarthy era in American history, down to accusations of sexual misconduct leveled against suspected sympathizers.10

  These two views of the times—stress and success—are not necessarily incompatible. Political and social strains were to a degree inevitable in an empire as large as Suleyman and his father had made it. Learning how to manage was one reason princes apprenticed in the provinces. Suleyman’s own training took place in the highly disturbed aftermath of his grandfather Bayezid II’s death. But Roxelana may have been reluctant to send her sons into Anatolia despite appreciation that her fundamental duty, shared with her husband, was to prepare them for rulership. We do not know if she disagreed with Suleyman over the issue. If she did, perhaps a combination of factors convinced her that the optimal time had arrived: the decisive Ottoman victory in Hungary in 1541, the fact that both princes had participated in it, and the danger to their reputations of any further delay.

  EUROPE HAD NOT been quiescent after the losses of 1538. Suleyman and his viziers were occupied with a series of truces that were the intricate aftermath of the recent conflicts. The greatest diplomatic tensions in Europe were the rivalries between the Spanish Hapsburgs and France in the west and the Austrian Hapsburgs and the Ottomans in central Europe; the one constant for the Ottomans in these years was their alliance with the French king Francis. Along with Suleyman’s viziers and his older sons, Roxelana was an important sounding board for the sultan, what with her own by now substantial knowledge of foreign affairs.

  Diplomacy could be a more drawn-out affair than a military campaign, in large part because the sultan’s empire had become a major player in the discordant concert of Europe. On the Ottoman side, much of the negotiation process was handled by the viziers, who enjoyed the collaboration of the empire’s multilingual dragoman translators. An audience with the sultan himself was a coveted if potentially tense event. When the French alliance threatened to collapse in one of those brief moments of French-Spanish rapprochement—Charles V was welcomed in Paris in 1540—Suleyman reacted in anger to this apparent deception, allegedly threatening to kill the French ambassador Antonio Rincon. But the skilled envoy was so conciliatory that instead he achieved his full agenda. Rincon even received a robe of honor from the sultan, who declared that once again he trusted France.11 Alas, the poor man was murdered by bandits on his return to Istanbul from a sojourn in Venice.12

  Meanwhile, trouble was brewing at the other end of the empire. In September 1540 Pellicier, the French ambassador in Venice, informed Francis that several of the sultan’s “lords and captains” in the eastern frontier region had risen up for lack of pay. Nothing remained of the grand seigneur’s conquests, he added, except Baghdad. The rebels had defected to the Sophy (“the Sufi,” as Europeans tended to refer to the shah of Iran—the Safavids had got their start in the fourteenth century as a sufi brotherhood). Pellicier followed up in October with the comment that “the Sophy business” troubled Suleyman more than ever, in part because Hungary was flaring up once again.13 War on two fronts—or rather two conflicts that called for the sultan’s personal leadership—was a threat that the Ottomans assiduously tried to avoid.

  Predictably, both Roxelana’s and Mahidevran’s sons were enlisted in their father’s military strategies. Suleyman moved to Adrianople in November 1540, taking 3,000 Janissaries and Mehmed and Selim with him (Roxelana had already gone ahead). The Thracian capital was an advantageous location should the sultan need to leave in haste to protect Ottoman interests in Hungary. Finally, in June 1541, Suleyman set out for the western frontier. Making war in Hungary was no easy matter, as the army could literally bog down in terrain vulnerable to flooding. Moreover, this was a critical showdown with the Hapsburgs.14 Mehmed and Selim accompanied their father, their reputation for standing by him in combat already established; Ferdinand countered by bringing his two sons to the confrontation.15 Once again Roxelana represented the royal family in the capital, now with Bayezid at her side.

  It was in this same month Suleyman ordered Mustafa’s transfer from Manisa to Amasya. Although historians often interpret the reassignment as banishment disguised, it was clearly a key element in Suleyman’s war plans to protect his eastern front as he himself went west. The prince’s transfer was a promotion in fiscal terms—Suleyman granted him a generous boost in stipend.16 Pellicier reported that another 3,000 Janissaries marched east with Mustafa.17 From Amasya, he was temporarily dispatched to southeastern Diyarbakır to counter any opportunistic Safavid moves. As the young commander moved from one end of Anatolia to the other, spectators in cities, towns, and villages could angle to catch a glimpse of the prince, his mother, and their retinues.

  The dispatch of Mustafa to the eastern front was a pointed announcement to the shah that the next Ottoman generation was formidable. It also let European powers know not to count on an Iranian thrust that would distract Ottoman attention from their western front. In the end, the Safavids did not pursue an offensive, having informed themselves of Suleyman’s treaties and his firm liaison with France.18 The princes proved to be a huge asset to the security and welfare of the whole empire. If Suleyman was its living embodiment, “God’s shadow on earth,” his adult sons radiated the charisma and might of the dynasty that Allah had blessed with good fortune. Displaying the royal sons to the public was an effective strategy for impressing both domestic and international publics. No one knew which one would succeed his father; therefore all would receive careful scrutiny.

  EVEN THE PRINCESS Mihrumah was being drawn into international affairs, if only indirectly. Her husband Rustem, who became second vizier in 1541, was Suleyman’s top officer during the Hungarian campaign of that year. (The eunuch Suleyman, the victor at Aden and now grand vizier, was stationed in Anatolia.) As chief campaign vizier, Rustem was responsible for aiding the sultan in sorting out the tricky situation that had developed in Hungary. In July 1540 John Zapolya, king of Hungary, governor of Transylvania, and vassal to Suleyman, had died unexpectedly, leaving his two-week-old son and heir and the infant’s mother Isabella vulnerable to the pretensions of Ferdinand. The archduke, who controlled western Hungary, lost no time in occupying Buda and seizing the crown. Suleyman responded by expelling him and putting central Hungary under direct Ottoman rule. Vassal rule in this critical frontier zone had proven too risky.

  It was Rustem who parlayed with the young queen during negotiations that eventually secured the surrender of her son’s claim to the Hungarian crown in exchange for the regency of Transylvania. Isabella was no minor princess, for she was the eldest child of Sigismund I, “the Old,” king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania and a monarch the Ottomans strove in this period to maintain as an ally. It was again Rustem who took Isabella’s side when Suleyman considered removing her and Zapolya’s little heir to Istanbul, where they would be political hostages, however distinguished. Isabella’s rich gifts to Mihrumah had allegedly helped win over the avaricious vizier.19

  In February 1542, Isabella sent an envoy to Suleyman, technically her overlord, to petition for the freedom of two Hungarian noblemen taken prisoner during the 1541 campaign and now held in the fortress of the Seven Towers in Istanbul.20 The sultan answered with a firm refusal, and the two men eventually died in captivity. However, Isabella received another response to the affair—a letter from Roxelana, carried by a royal courier. In it, the queen announced that she was taking Isabella and her son under her protection. Isabella should trust Roxelana’s authority, as the Ottoman queen did hers: “I am the person most close to the emperor [Suleyman] and you are the true queen of the kingdom of Hungary.”21

  Roxelana’s letter, put into Latin, opened with a
specifically female salutation: Filia charissima (dearest daughter). “We are both born from one mother, Eve,” it continued, “and we are both created from the same matter.” Pointing to Isabella’s allegiance to Suleyman and tacitly underlining the young queen’s indebtedness to the sultanate, Roxelana wrote, “And we both serve the same man.” Unspoken but doubtless understood by both women was their shared responsibility as mothers of young heirs in uncertain political environments.22

  Isabella’s response to this invitation to a female diplomatic alliance is unknown, but Roxelana pursued the connection through Isabella to the Polish monarchy. In a further act of female solidarity (and Ottoman partisanship), she let it be known that she supported the wishes of Isabella’s mother Bona Sforza in the matter of the marriage of her son, Isabella’s younger brother Sigismund Augustus. In an age that teemed with remarkable kings and queens, Bona was an unusually fascinating woman. Princess of the powerful House of Sforza, which had ruled Milan for almost three-quarters of a century, Bona became Sigismund the Old’s second wife in 1518.23 She brought with her to Cracow an entourage that introduced Renaissance learning and artistry, and she soon established herself as a political force. Roxelana had come to the Ottomans with no such cultural or political credentials, but she could recognize another queen with ambitions to make her mark on her adopted country.

  The marriage of Sigismund Augustus was of critical interest to the Ottomans, for the Polish prince had long been betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of Archduke Ferdinand, Suleyman’s prime rival in central Europe. Bona’s strong opposition to this Hapsburg alliance opened another door to Roxelana’s diplomatic ambitions. Now she sent an envoy, one Said Beg, to Cracow, who arrived on January 28, 1543. (The envoy, Polish by origin, had been captured as a child in 1498 during the siege of his family’s castle in Ruthenia; converted to Islam, he was noticed by Ibrahim Pasha and assigned to Polish embassies.)24

  The pretext for Said Beg’s journey was a personal matter that had put him on the outs with the grand vizier Suleyman, but he was apparently traveling at Roxelana’s behest: she wished to assure Bona that she would back her in the matter of the marriage. Roxelana doubtless spoke for both herself and Suleyman, who appears to have appreciated, if tacitly, the utility of this emerging network of queens. He was planning a new campaign for the spring to confront Ferdinand yet again over Hungary.

  Bona reacted to Roxelana’s message immediately. She called for a secret council on January 29. Discussion of the optimal policy toward the Ottomans and the status of Isabella in Transylvania ensued. Opinions were divided, but a consensus emerged that hopes should not be placed on the outcome of the anticipated confrontation between the feuding monarchs (Ferdinand was favored by some attending the council) and that pacts with “the Turks” should not be overly trusted. Sigismund the Old, partisan of his son’s engagement, opined that the Turkish emperor was “faithful neither to us nor anybody else.” To this cautious stance, Bona apparently responded that she would rather Isabella and her boy die or fall into Turkish captivity than for Ferdinand to acquire Hungary in a peaceful manner (through the marital alliance of Austria and Poland).25

  Bona remained a partisan of the Ottomans. Two years later, for instance, the peace with Istanbul came under threat when Lithuanian Cossacks attacked Ochakov, the Ottoman-controlled Black Sea fortress city, and Polish collusion was suspected. Bona was instrumental in heading off a potential rupture by arranging a settlement between Polish and Ottoman commanders stationed in the region. Queen Bona eventually returned to Milan, having broken with her son over his second marriage. (The unfortunate Elizabeth died just two years after the 1543 wedding, and the prince married his very unpopular mistress.) Roxelana and Suleyman, however, kept up the habitual Ottoman cultivation of peace with Poland. When Sigismund Augustus inherited the throne in 1548, a hearty round of correspondence would ensue that included the princess Mihrumah, who persisted in the distaff approach to diplomacy that her mother had put into action.

  ROXELANA NEVER FORGOT her domestic concerns. Once Mehmed and Selim settled into their respective governorships, she lost no time in visiting them. In the summer of 1543, she traveled to both Konya and Manisa. Another annal was entered in the Manisa registry: “While the fortune-favored sovereign was on his way to the fortress of Pécs, the Haseki Sultan together with their majesties the sultans came to Konya, and from there to Bozdağ, and from there to Manisa. In the year 950.”26 The “sultans” were presumably Cihangir and Mihrumah; Bayezid had succeeded his elder brothers as his father’s confederate at war.27 The attraction of Bozdağ (ash-brown mountain) was that it offered one of those retreats to summer pastureland so beloved of the Ottomans. Probable site of the luxurious palace belonging to the ruler of Aydin, one of the Turkish principalities absorbed by the Ottomans, Bozdağ was celebrated in poetry.28

  Desire on both sides for a family reunion doubtless motivated the journey. Whether deliberate or not, however, the visits to Konya and Manisa were also a political maneuver. Finally, Suleyman’s queen could compensate for her permanent residence in the capital by showing herself in the great Anatolian heartland. Like her journeys to Adrianople, her progresses to and from her sons’ posts were a perfect opportunity to display her majesty. Roxelana could also display interest in and a concern for the empire’s subjects during the frequent stops in cities and towns along the route. On a more personal level, Roxelana had found a solution to the loneliness so often described in her letters when her menfolk were absent (Suleyman was now back on the Austrian frontier bolstering Ottoman control of Hungary).

  Roxelana had last seen Mehmed and Selim at their gubernatorial inauguration as provincial governors. Like Mustafa in 1533, Mehmed and then Selim had been formally invested by their father and members of the Imperial Council in a traditional ceremony where Suleyman bestowed on each a banner and a drum, old symbols of Ottoman sovereignty.29 Their mother may have observed their investiture from the Tower of Justice, perhaps accompanied by Mihrumah and the boys’ childhood governesses. The loyal service of the latter was intended to be lifelong, and in some ways each knew her prince better than his mother did. In fact, these women may well have left Istanbul as members of Mehmed’s and Selim’s households. Prudent counselors and loyal to the queen (who would otherwise replace them), the governesses were logical stand-ins for Roxelana.

  The only records documenting Roxelana’s journeys into Anatolia are the bare-bones Manisa annals, leaving us with a frustrating silence on the whole new world that the queen was about to absorb. With her trips back and forth to the Adrianople palace, Roxelana had become familiar with a rural panorama of small towns and villages. But Anatolia presented a larger and more variegated canvas as well as a radically new historical geography.

  Roxelana’s first business in Konya was to reunite with Selim and to rest from the long journey. Then would follow formal receptions—it was only proper that the prince introduce his mother and siblings to his household. Selim would later be known for his proclivity to drink, but these festivities were more restrained, taking place as they did in the Konya palace’s domestic quarters. While only Cihangir would be introduced to the military and administrative wings of the palace compound, Roxelana would doubtless confer with the prince’s lala. Although Selim carried on direct correspondence with his father via couriers, Suleyman no doubt sent instructions with his wife, possibly including an inspection of the palace and orders for any necessary alterations and additions.

  Like any son with visiting relatives, Selim would show off the venerable city of which he was now in charge. Konya was a museum of delights for a maturing maven of architecture like Roxelana. Seljuk and Karaman princes and Mongol governors had strewn the city with mosques and madrasas. The queen’s first foray into the city proper was doubtless to the shrine of Jalal al-Din Rumi, the great mystic who was said to have welcomed Christians and Jews as well as Muslims to his teaching circles.

  From a strict religious perspective, praying at the graves of the dea
d was tantamount to breaking the cardinal precept of Muslim faith—that there is no god but Allah. But deeply embedded in the spiritual practice of many Ottoman subjects was the habit of visiting the shrines and tombs of revered persons to offer prayers for the deceased and often to seek their intercession. Such was the power of the dead that people of one faith might venerate the saint of another and shrines might acquire new spiritual identities through the sheer volume of pilgrims.30 Before exiting the capital to go to war, sultans themselves routinely stopped at the tombs of their ancestors and at the shrine of the martyr-saint Eyüb north of the city walls. Eyüb, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad, allegedly fell in 670 during the first attempt of Arab Muslims to capture Constantinople. According to Ottoman legend, the tomb of Eyüb was miraculously discovered during Mehmed II’s siege of the city; the Byzantines had allegedly prayed at the grave for rain in times of drought.

  With the rise of the Safavid “Sophys,” their adoption of shi`i Islam, and especially the fervent religiosity fostered by the shah himself, it behooved the Ottomans to sanction veneration of sufi saints that might offset their suppression of Safavid sympathies. On the other hand, Suleyman and his advisers were also now pursuing a policy of stricter sunni Islamic conformity. The proliferation of mosques in Istanbul and elsewhere in the late 1530s and 1540s was one manifestation. But while royal women built mosques, they also shouldered responsibility for propagating acceptable modes of sufi spirituality. Konya was an excellent environment for Roxelana to apprentice herself in the diverse expressions of Islamic faith.

  So great was the saintly charisma of Rumi that Suleyman could hardly have failed to visit his tomb during the army’s halt in Konya on its 1534 march eastward.31 Sixteen years later Selim would do his part by supervising the construction of a mosque that his father endowed adjacent to the shrine.32 When she paid her own respects in 1543, the queen and her children were perhaps honored with a performance of the ritual distinguishing the sufi order that Rumi’s followers established after his death. Known as the Mevleviye, the order took its name from the title of respect accorded to the revered mystic—Mevlana (our lord). The familiar moniker “whirling dervishes” tends to mask the deeply spiritual liturgy that informed the circular movement of Mevlevi celebrants and its mournful instrumental accompaniment.