The Fall Of Szigetvár (1566) | Part 1: Suleiman's Last March

*transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors*

It's the 8th of September, 1566.

In southwest Hungary, the tiny castle of Szigetvár quivers like a leaf under the bombardment

of Ottoman cannons.

The castle and its defenders had held out longer than anyone expected.

For over a month, cannons had pounded at the walls, there was not a stump left standing.

The attackers had taken the outer city, then the inner city.

The gatehouse had fallen, then the courtyard.

All that remained was the inner citadel, where a handful of soldiers, all gravely injured,

stood guard.

There was barely any food or water left, and the enemy was so close that if anyone lifted

their head above the ramparts, they were shot instantly.

They were doomed.

Outside the gatehouse, the elite Ottoman soldiers, the Janissaries, murmured prayers under their

breath as they prepared for the final assault.

Their long white bassinets now caked in blood and dirt.

Tens of thousands of their comrades had fallen trying to take this teetering fortress, and

now, finally, their moment was at hand.

Behind them, engineers drenched in sweat, hammered yet another repair band around the cracking

bronze cannons.

Like the men inside, these machines were on their last legs.

Far from the front lines, the 71-year-old Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent,

watched the scene take place.

His breathing slow and laboured, his eyesight failing, and his body riddled with gout.

The ancient sultan felt the pull from Jannah, the afterlife beckoned him.

Suleiman's seven decades on earth had ushered in an age of reason and law for the Ottoman

Empire, but what he was celebrated for, above all else, were his conquests.

This was his 13th military campaign, and he knew it would be his last.

Forty years ago, when he was a young man, he had shattered the shield of Europe, defeating

the Hungarian army at the field of Mohacs.

In the four decades since, empires had collapsed before him.

Crusading orders dedicated to the eradication of Islam had been vanquished, and some of

the greatest churches in Europe were now mosques, all because of him.

Yet this tiny castle and its insignificant ruler defied him.

He had tried assaults, he had tried trickery, he had even tried flattery, but nothing could

convince Count Nikola Zrinski (also known as Zrínyi Miklós or Nikola Šubić Zrinski)  to surrender the fortress.

Suleiman was tired, so tired.

As he hobbled out of his tent, shielding his face from the bright September sun, he squinted

at the shabby fortress.

The effort of moving even a few steps pained him greatly.

He would rest afterwards, he told himself.

He knew that this battle would be his last, and no matter what, he would see it through

to its conclusion.

Inside the castle, things were bleaker than he could have possibly imagined.

Almost every man nursed mortal wounds, the defenders did all they could to try and hold

the enemy back, but with little medicine, food or water, it was a fool's errand.

Covered in plaster and dust, the guards shuffled from post to post like spectres.

While the injured and the dying were packed into an overflowing hospital, where the walls

seemed to shrink with each Ottoman assault.

Nikola Zrinsky was under no illusions of victory.

He knew no one was coming to help.

He and his handful of men would meet their end, but they'd do it on his terms.

He would leave the old man a little parting gift.

Packed against the walls of the keep was the one thing that had an abundance, dozens of

barrels of gunpowder.

Long release fuse had been lit, and the wick slowly burned towards the bomb.

Like sand falling through an hourglass, the hissing counted down his time on earth.

Zrinsky knew he was no hero.

He had lived a wicked, sinful life, but maybe, just maybe, with this final act he could redeem

himself.

Maybe like Saint Paul who Christ redeemed, his soul could be saved too.

As he watched the wick slowly singe towards the gunpowder, his only regret was that he

wouldn't see the old man's face when it reached the end.

Mounting his charger, Zrinsky gave the signal and the gatehouse doors flung open.

The drawbridge dropped, and as the morning rays fell upon he and his men, he raised his

sabre and charged out into the Ottoman ranks.

You're listening to Anthology of Heroes, the podcast sharing stories of heroic figures

who alter the course of history.

Anthology of Heroes is part of the Evergreen podcast network.

I'm your host, Elliot Gates, and this is the 1566 Siege of Szigetvár, part one, Suleiman's

final march.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

I bet you thought you'd heard the end of Suleiman after my hatch, didn't you?

Well, think again.

I've wanted to cover this series since forever.

This is one of these goosebumps on your arm type stories.

It's the story of almost pointless, arrogant defiance, defiance for the sake of it.

This little tiny fortress completely surrounded by the enemy.

Their cause was utterly hopeless and the men inside saying, no we don't care what you

offer us, we don't care that you'll win, we're not surrendering, middle finger.

A French cardinal riding a century or so after the siege would go as far as to call

it, quote, the battle that saved civilization.

His theory was that this siege was just a stopover on the way to the grand prize, the

capital of the Holy Roman Empire, Vienna.

The French cardinal theorized that this campaign was the last throw of the dice for the Old

Sultan, where he was going to try and take Vienna again.

But because he lost so many men taking Szigetvár, carrying on to Vienna was impossible.

If Zyrinski had surrendered and Suleiman conquered Vienna, there was no grand power to stop him

until he reached France.

Would a few tiny German kingdoms have converted to Islam for guns or money?

If so, how does that change German unification in the 1800s?

Does a Muslim minority in Central Europe change the world wars?

Who knows, maybe, maybe not, but it certainly would have mixed things up, wouldn't it?

This is going to be a two-part series.

The first episode is going to be a whistle-stop tour of Suleiman the Magnificent's life.

As the Old Sultan travels to Szigetvár, he'll have plenty of time to reminisce about the

highest and lowest moments of his life.

We've unpacked little bits of Suleiman's story in other episodes, but in those episodes

we really just scratched the surface.

We've seen the consequences of Suleiman's actions through the eyes of the Knights Hospitaller

or the Kingdom of Hungary, but we've barely spoken about Suleiman himself.

I mean, putting aside his record-breaking 13 military campaigns, this guy was the longest

reigning Sultan of all time, and governed the state in what many would call the Ottoman

Golden Age.

At a time when Europe was just crumbling from civil wars and religious strife, Suleiman

was rebuilding Roman aqueducts, rooting out corrupt governors, even mandating the ratio

of honey and sweets, all in the name of fairness and justice as prescribed in the Koran.

But Suleiman the Magnificent wasn't always so… magnificent.

From his scandalous and likely homosexual relationship with Grand Vizier to the nepotism

of his favourite concubine, Suleiman was a man, a man with vices and weaknesses, just

like all of us.

Through the next two episodes, as the Siege of Szigetvár unfolds, we're going to see his

health decline, and in his final days we'll get a window into his consciousness, as this

old man looks back on the most defining moments of his life, be they thoughts of triumph,

love, or deep regret.

We'll also talk about the month-long siege, how it took place, how the defenders resisted,

and why it was so important to the aged Sultan.

In part two, we'll share what we know about the man who led the spirited resistance of

the doomed garrison, Nikola Zrinsky , a modern-day hero of Hungary and Croatia.

Nikola Zrinsky was a ruthless career land baron who might have stepped over his own

mother if it meant climbing another rung on the political totem pole at the Habsburg court.

But yet, at the end, he sacrificed himself defending Szigetvár until his last breath.

An act that catapulted his name from the back pages of history to a national hero of two

modern countries.

So patch up the cannons, we've got another siege episode.

On the 1st of May, 1566, a grand procession marched out of the Ottoman capital of Constantinople.

Thousands of imperial guards led the column, sitting atop Arab thoroughbreds, their weapons

and belts shone like gold in the spring sunlight.

Draped in clothes of woven silk and velvet, across their back was a decorative hunting

arrow, and on their chest a jewelled scimitar, the symbol of the sultan whose life they protected.

Merchants cleaved the road, and farmers in nearby fields lent on their tools and took

in the spectacle.

Stretching for miles back, the colour, the music, was almost like a parade.

Behind the imperial guard marched the janissaries, stern and somber, their heads wrapped in trailing

cotton bonnets of baby blue.

Long feathers or spoons pressed into their turbans distinguished rank and stature as

they marched in complete silence.

Next came the stable boys leading pack horses, foreign dignitaries and then the page boys.

When all had passed, the country folk got a glimpse of what they'd been waiting for.

Bumping along the cobbled road was the gleaming carriage of the man that ruled them all.

The commander of the faithful, the shadow of God on earth, protector of the holy cities

of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, lord of the lords of the world, the exalted caliph, the

supreme gazi, Suleiman the Magnificent.

The 71 year old was heading out on his 13th military campaign.

In tow was the largest army he'd ever assembled, nearly 200,000 soldiers, cooks, porters and

camp staff.

The farmers cheered and clapped, some ran forward with petitions but the guards brushed

them aside.

In the past the sultan was known to stop and listen to the grievances of his people, but

not today.

As inside the gilded carriage, Suleiman was in extraordinary pain.

Ridder with gout, each bump in the road echoed through his bones, no matter how many pillars

he propped himself on, it was agonising.

His doctors had advised him against this journey, against the whole campaign actually.

He had many able military commanders, they said why not leave this battle to them?

An insubordant accruation lord was hardly worth risking his majesty's health.

But the sultan was insistent, he needed to prove to his subjects and his enemies that

he still held the reins of this empire, more than that he needed to prove it to himself.

As the cart bottomed into another pothole, a sharp pain shot up the old man's leg.

Suleiman gritted his teeth, nestled into his sheets and dreamed of another age.

The year was 1528, Suleiman was a young man again.

He was back at home in Istanbul, relaxing in his pleasure gardens.

Pushing aside a porcelain cup of sweetened tea, he left behind the soothing sounds of

flowing water and the core of peacocks, and wandered leisurely through the halls of his

palace.

Life was good, since annihilating the Hungarian kingdom, his position on the Ottoman throne

was safe, inshallah.

The victory had won him not just the support of his courtroom, but of his people.

When the sultan walked the streets of a city, be it Istanbul or any distant province, people

cheered for him.

He was thin and frail looking, but so was his great grandfather, Mehmet the Conqueror.

He was quiet and thoughtful, but so too was Mehmet.

His hooked nose, his pale complexion, all genetic traits that connected him back to

one of the greatest sultans in the living history.

His victory at Mohat should also raised his own confidence.

After he'd noticed that the way he wore his turban, low sitting just above his eyebrows,

his courtiers had begun to copy.

He smiled to himself.

As he strolled through the winding halls of his palace, servants and dignitaries darted

out from doors.

Some presented a petition, others a report, and the sultan listened to each one of them.

He gave them his full attention regardless of their rank.

Truth be told he found the business of government tiring, but this was the role that Allah had

chosen for him, and every day he did it to the best of his ability.

From the moment he seated himself on the throne, he wanted to set a precedent, that his rule

was to be one of law, order and fairness.

This was how Suleiman lived his life, and this is how he expected his subjects to live theirs.

Everyone was to be judged according to the indisputable word of God, as written in the

Quran.

With sweeping changes, he cleared out the deadwood his father's rule had left behind.

The highest admiral in the land was executed on charges of corruption.

Provincial governors who'd enslaved subjects or overtaxed cities were replaced.

And though he cared little for the Shia Muslims of his empire, the sultan reversed many of

the Harsha laws his father had imposed on them.

Even the Christians who lived in his enormous empire couldn't help but notice the ancient

Roman aqueducts that, for centuries had lay broken and crumbling, were being repaired and

brought back to life.

Just as if the sultan was oiling the ancient gears of the Roman machine he'd inherited.

A contemporary noted of his rule, quote, The sweet perfume of his just deeds was spread

to the four corners of the earth.

People breathed the pleasing fresh scent of his benevolence.

Talk of his justice was on everyone's tongue.

Nobles and commoners alike, he scared straight.

A man being looked into for a minor tax error may find his case adjudicated by the sultan

himself.

The sultan was rarely in one place for too long.

Travelling throughout his empire, if he came across a village saying prayers at a crumbling

mosque he immediately ordered it repaired.

When he saw a mule stuck in the mud on an old roadside he ordered the pavement fixed.

Solomon was tireless in his quest for justice and his people loved him for it.

But lately they'd began to talk, to gossip about him.

As the sultan lazily strolled through the halls of his palace his eyes fell upon the

source of the gossip.

Being atop a stack of crimson pillows debating with a group of diplomats was Ibrahim Pasha,

Solomon's most trusted governor, best friend and, if caught gossip was to be believed,

his lover.

Ibrahim was as important to the sultan as his arms or his legs.

They were kindred spirits and they shared a bond that was unbreakable.

Because of this it's important we spend a minute examining who he is and where he

came from.

If you'd have approached Ibrahim as a young boy and asked him if he could imagine himself

greeting envoys for the sultan of the Ottoman Empire he would have looked at you like you

were crazy.

Ibrahim, not his birth name, began his quaint life somewhat on the Greek coastline.

The son of a fisherman and an adherent to the old Byzantine Orthodox faith he was destined

for, well, pretty ordinary life.

But after being captured by Ottoman pirates and enslaved he'd ended up in the care of

a wealthy noble woman who taught him to play a violin-like instrument.

Under this woman's guidance he grew into a talented violinist and a very good looking

one at that.

One afternoon as a beautiful mournful note of his violin drifted through the marketplace

it caught the ear of a wealthy young man, a prince actually, a prince named Solomon.

When Solomon approached the teen who was roughly his own age he was charmed by him, not just

by the music he played but by the way he spoke and carried himself.

He was a flatterer for sure but a cheeky one.

The prince was surprised to learn that this slave spoke almost as many languages as he

did.

Greek, Albanian, Turkish and Italian, slave or not he was clearly intelligent.

With his flowing blonde locks and chiseled jaw the sultan knew an easy buy when he saw

one.

And just like that the Greek slave became part of the prince's little entourage, his

household.

The slave soon converted to Islam and took the name we know him by, Ibrahim.

Putting aside his violin, Solomon made use of Ibrahim's extensive knowledge of languages,

giving him a job as a page, a kind of clerk or record keeper.

Solomon had an army of page boys but Ibrahim was special to him.

While the other page boys slept in communal quarters, Ibrahim slept in Solomon's apartment.

The two ate most of their meals together and often disappeared into the countryside for

hours at a time.

Some days they would take Solomon's boat out to sea and spend the entire day there

in each other's company.

Back at the palace they were barely apart and when they were they passed notes through

court mutes who'd relay their messages back and forth.

The question you're wondering is one I wondered too, were they lovers?

My opinion, probably.

Male friendship in the Ottoman times was much more… sentimental than what we westerners

might consider normal today but I think this surpassed that.

It's worth pointing out that the Ottoman sources make virtually no reference to this

closeness between these two men as just the western sources, mostly Venetian ones that

mention it.

A single reference could be dismissed but multiple independent diplomats saying the

same thing over dozens of visits?

That makes a claim more credible, doesn't it?

Like other places in Europe and the Middle East, homosexual relationships weren't unheard

of.

In fact you might even go as far as say they were uncommon, particularly in the upper rungs

of power.

There was no word for gay or straight in the Ottoman dialect, it usually just came down

to one partner being dominant and the other submissive.

In the steamy Ottoman bathhouses it was a madhouse.

All kinds of poetry and artwork all the way back to the 15th century are dedicated to

the eroticism of male on male and female on female relationships and even now, in 2023

some of them are pretty racy indeed.

Deep skip ahead 15 seconds if you've got kids listening.

Issa Nakati, a very famous Ottoman poet, summed up his own feelings with the bold declaration

quote.

When the rose, meaning the anus, holds carnival, the tulip, meaning the vagina, is smartly

shown the door.

While Cem Sultan, a disgraced Ottoman prince, found himself exiled to Paris and had a pretty

good time indeed, writing some very spicy poetry about his rendezvous.

But I digress.

The point I'm making is that the fact that Suleiman probably had a male lover wasn't

all that scandalous, but the Sultan's adoration and obsession with the slave was.

When Suleiman rose as Sultan, Ibrahim rose with him.

By the time the lanky, beardless Sultan had taken the throne, the affection that the new

Sultan had for Ibrahim was obvious to the public.

So much so that the pasha was openly referred to as makbul, meaning the favourite.

As we've explained, Suleiman always tried to emphasise that his rule was to be one of

fairness, promotions and appointments were based on merit.

So his next decision had the public raising their eyebrow to say the least.

After the Sultan, the most important role in the Ottoman Empire was the Grand Vizier.

The Grand Vizier held tremendous power.

The position was so similar to the Sultan's one that the previous ruler, Suleiman's father,

preferred to leave it vacant for long periods of time, worrying that giving one man so much

power was dangerous.

If you ever watched Disney's Aladdin, Jafar was the Grand Vizier in that story, and how

did that go down?

But anyway, when Suleiman took the throne, his father's Grand Vizier was pretty old.

He'd had a long, distinguished career, but it was time to hang up the cemetery.

The most obvious person to take over the job was a man named Hain Ahmed.

Hain had actually convinced Suleiman to retire the old Grand Vizier, with the assumption

that he would step into the role.

What a nasty surprise it was for him when he was passed over for the Sultan's favourite,

an up-jumped slave and a Christian convert at that.

The Sultan announced Ibrahim would be the new Grand Vizier.

Hain was humiliated, and when he became the governor of Egypt, he actually launched a

rebellion against Suleiman.

It went nowhere, and Suleiman quickly had him murdered.

But although he was the first, he certainly wouldn't be the last to be scandalised by

Suleiman's unashamed favouritism shown to Ibrahim Pasha.

But despite all the scandals, as the Sultan watched his favourite, dressed in the finest

threads in the land, conversed with diplomats, he couldn't help but smile how far his friend

had come.

The 71-year-old Sultan awoke from his slumber.

It was 1566 again.

As the familiar throbbing pains shot through his aged body, he reached immediately for

his medicine bottle.

Bleary-eyed, he straightened himself and pulled the curtains of his litter back.

The head arrived at the borders of his vast empire.

Up ahead was the fortress of Szigetvár.

The journey had been hellish.

It was the middle of summer, but every riverbank had flooded, every bridge had needed repair.

Because as if nature itself was trying to repel him, it had taken just over three months.

And against the repeated pleas of his doctors to go slow, the Sultan had refused all but

the most necessary stops.

The sooner he destroyed this paltry croat lord, the sooner he could go home and rest.

His doctors had given him all manner of potions and elixirs for his arthritis and gout.

His engineers had even rode ahead and repaved roads so the surface was smoother, but still

he felt each jolt, each rock, and every pothole.

There was a knock on his carriage door, and the face of a young teenager poked inside

to announce their arrival.

For a single moment in his sleepy haze, the sultans thought it was Ibrahim coming to fetch

him for one of their walks.

But as soon as that thought entered his mind, he locked it away.

That memory was too painful.

In the boy's face, the Sultan saw the energy of youth that he remembered so viscerally.

When did he get so old?

With the help of his attendants, he hobbled down to the marshy fields of Szigetvár.

He had seen hundreds of battle sites, and this looked like any other.

Grass, mud, tents, and people.

The air heavy with the smell of food and excrement.

Must be mourning.

But when the Sultan's eyes fell upon the castle itself, he cringed.

He had read reports about the excellent defensive capabilities of the fortress, but he was hoping

they were exaggerated.

They weren't.

Small as it was, this castle was ideally positioned to withstand a siege.

Sitting on an island in the middle of a swamp, a single bridge connected land to the first

island, which then ran to the second island before finally reaching the fortress.

The fortress had been constructed as a star fort.

Star forts were the New Age medieval castles.

In the old days, when you built a castle, you did it on the highest hill and built the

thing as tall as possible.

The fortress could shoot arrows downwards at the attackers as they climbed the hill,

and the attackers were vulnerable until they breached the walls.

But by the 16th century, as cannons were becoming more commonplace on the battlefield, a height

advantage was much less valuable.

In fact, it was now a disadvantage.

The attacking army could just sit at the bottom of the hill, aim the cannon at any point on

the wall, and blast it to smithereens.

Star forts were designed to mitigate this.

How did they work?

Well, if you picture a medieval castle and then squash it between your fingers, that

was a star fort.

Squat, wide, and usually built on flatlands, they had thicker walls to deal with the impact

of cannonballs, and there were no spindly towers to target.

They got their name from the triangular bastions that jutted out from the main structure, meaning

that if you looked at the whole structure from above, it would look like a five-pointed

star.

Suleiman's side.

A veteran of countless sieges, he knew if Zrinsky didn't surrender, the castle would

not fall easily.

Turning away, he took his attendance arm and hobbled towards his grand tent as they briefed

him on the state of things.

With laboured breathing, he spread himself out on his bed, catching a reflection of himself

in his bedside mirror.

The image shocked him.

Who was this sick old man staring back at him?

He had always been frail looking, but he had never seen himself so… gaunt.

Sallow cheeks, red bleary eyes, and a white patchy beard.

He turned the mirror face down, took another gulp of one of his physician's potions,

and drifted off to sleep.

The year was 1532, and the 38-year-old Suleiman sat at his portable desk within his campaign

tent.

The pitter-patter of rain fell lightly outside, but he hardly noticed.

Taking another unopened letter from Ibrahim to the side, he reread the poem he just penned,

quote.

Throne of my lovely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.

My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my sultan.

The most beautiful among them beautiful, my springtime, my merry-faced love, my daytime,

my sweetheart, laughing leaf.

My plants, my sweet, my rose.

The only one who doesn't distress me in this world.

My Istanbul, my Karaman, the earth of my Anatolia.

My Badakshamni Baghdad, my Khorasan.

My woman of beautiful hair.

My love of the slanted brow.

My love of eyes full of mischief.

I'll sing your praises always.

I, lover of the tormented heart, muhibi, of the eyes full of tears.

I am happy.

Taking his quill dipping it into the inkwell, he signed it with his pen name, muhibi.

It was a new love in Suleiman's life, and she was called Roxalana.

From the time the sultan laid his eyes on her, he'd been entranced.

That name, Roxalana, wasn't her real name, it was a classification that loosely meant

Ruthenian woman.

Roxalana had been captured by a raiding party somewhere in the region of Poland or Ukraine.

Historical records speculate that her name was once Anastasia Lososki, but when she arrived

in the harem of Suleiman, she was, from then on, Roxalana.

Like Ibarahim, her past was completely wiped away.

She converted to Islam and was placed in the world's most luxurious prison, the Imperial

Haram.

Islamic harems are usually depicted in western media as these insidious dens of vices, a

curtain in a sanctum where, through sweet musky smoke, the most lurid sex acts take place.

Dwarves tumble and bards sing as a substance-fuelled orgy swirls around.

The reality is pretty different.

While sex played a part in the sultan's most private sanctum, it was family politics that

took the main stage.

The only men that were allowed inside the harem, apart from the sultan himself, were

eunuchs, of which there were two kinds.

White eunuchs who had their testicles removed, and black eunuchs who had both their penis

and testicles removed.

Within this sacred cloister, deep within the layered palace of Istanbul, was a hidden world

where the sultan's mother, his concubines, and his young children all competed for the

privilege of spending time with him.

An hour spent with Suleiman, no matter how that hour was spent, was time to plot, influence,

and push your own agenda.

The sultan had many concubines and each of them fought for the same thing, dynasty, for

their son to inherit the Ottoman throne after his passing.

It was a game of persistence, luck, and patience, and Roxalana played to win.

The affairs of the harem were by design private, so we have to take the sources we have with

a grain of salt.

But a Venetian ambassador mentioned that Suleiman as a young man was quote, very lustful, noting

that he disappeared regularly to the harem.

More often than not, he was heading there for a rendezvous with a beautiful young Circassian

woman he nicknamed Mahadevren, meaning My Lucky Moon.

Mahadevren was Suleiman's favourite concubine, and that meant she was special.

Her and her son, Mustafa, were treated similarly to how a queen and prince might be treated.

Perhaps one day, as the Suleiman headed off for one of his rendezvous with his Lucky Moon,

he heard the sounds of joyous, unashamed, pure laughter.

His eyes fell upon Roxalana.

The Sultan was drawn to her, particularly a laugh and quickly nicknamed her Harim, meaning

the joyful one.

From that moment on, his other concubine's days were numbered.

In Roxalana, Suleiman found a retreat from the rigors of running an empire.

Always cheerful, smiling, and laughing, she seemed to understand him like no one else

did.

Petite Pail, with long red hair, a Venetian ambassador noted that she was, quote, young

but not beautiful, though graceful and petite.

Soon the Sultan nominated her Haseki Sultan, chief consort.

It was plain to see that he was infatuated, head over heels.

He had a choice of every woman in the world, but he didn't want any of them.

All he wanted was Roxalana.

He was soon so obsessed that his people whispered that this redhead maiden had bewitched him

using spells from her native lands.

Mahidevran, his lucky moon, was yesterday's news.

There was nothing she could do to win over Suleiman's heart.

One day the Sultan summoned Roxalana for another tryst, and on her way to his chambers she

passed Mahidevran.

Knowing where she was headed, Mahidevran was furious and humiliated.

This redhead harlot was undoing everything that she'd worked for.

The dynasty she'd built was crumbling before her eyes, and she was powerless to stop it.

As she passed her, she muttered under a breath that Roxalana was, quote, nothing but sold

meat.

Roxalana rose to the fight, and Mahidevran mocked her, calling her stupid and naive

for daring to try and replace her.

Roxalana grabbed her by the hair, and the two women fell to the floor, clawing, biting

and swearing at each other before the guards pulled them apart.

Suleiman, still waiting in his quarters, inquired as to what had happened, and very cunningly

Roxalana said that she was so disfigured from this fight that she couldn't bear to have

her beloved Sultan see her this way.

And just as she planned, the Sultan insisted on seeing her.

When he saw the smiling face of his favourite covered with deep scratches and missing clumps

of hair, he ordered Mahidevran sent away from the capital.

She would never return.

Such was life at the Imperial Haram.

From that moment on, Roxalana was the only woman in Suleiman's life.

Breaking Ottoman tradition that dictated one son per concubine, Roxalana birthed several

children for Suleiman, most of them boys too.

When Suleiman went on campaign, his beloved was hampered by not knowing how to write

in Turkish, so she learnt.

An early letter written in wobbly, stilted Turkish from her hand says, quote, My Sultan,

you wrote that if I were able to read what you write, you would write at greater length

for your longing for me.

Not exactly poetry, but soon she was fluent, and the contents of her letters were vital

for the Sultan while he was away on campaign.

And he was away a lot.

The Sultan took conquest very seriously.

By his fiftieth birthday, he had personally led ten campaigns.

From disobedient Habsburg nobles in Hungary, to heretical Shiites in Persia, north, south,

east or west, there was nowhere that the Sultan feared to tread.

Influence was power, and Roxalana, a slave captured in Eastern Europe, was now the most

powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire.

Maybe the world, but there was still one whose power eclipsed hers, one who had been as intimate

with the Sultan as she was, and one who knew him perhaps better than she did.

Ibrahim Pasha, Suleiman's best friend and grand vizier.

Though the long walks or days spent out at sea were behind them, the two men still shared

a strong bond.

They had known each other for twenty-five years.

Ibrahim met Suleiman when he was a beardless young prince, and Suleiman rescued Ibrahim

when he was a penniless Christian slave.

That kind of history and emotional intimacy couldn't just be replicated.

Ibrahim had grown into a capable governor and a decent military commander, but as Roxalana

implied and probed, maybe he was growing a bit too big for his britches.

Perhaps with all his riches and titles, he'd forgotten who was Sultan and who was subject.

After a victory in Persia, Ibrahim accepted the honorary title of Sultan.

In the east, in Persia, there could be many sultans, but in the Ottoman Empire, there

was always just one.

Was his old friend forgetting that?

Putting down the poetry he'd penned for his beloved, Suleiman picked up another one of

her letters that said, quote, You asked why I'm angry at the Pasha.

God willing, when we are able to be together again, you will hear.

For now, we send our regards to the Pasha.

May he accept them, end quote.

There may come a time when the sultan needed to pick between the two, but that time was

not today.

Today he needed all the friends he could get.

As he tucked the poem into the hands of a courier, Suleiman was feeling about as low

as he'd ever felt.

His army was in retreat, returning home after his second failed siege of Vienna.

This time he didn't even make it to the walls of the capital.

For the second time in five years his army was limping home, a sad, downtrodden mass

of men and horses retreating in shame with their tail between their legs.

What would Mehmet, his great-grandfather, say if he saw him now?

Vienna, the golden apple, had become an obsession for the sultan in the last decade.

His great-grandfather had conquered the red apple, Constantinople, and with Hungary defeated,

Vienna was all that blocked him from boundless expanse into the Christian heartland, into

Europe.

Though Roxalana would comfort him, assuring him that his conquests of Hungary was more

than enough to ensure his legacy as a great commander, he was unconvinced.

As the rain drizzled down on the tents of his army, he wondered, had he reached his apex?

When was enough enough?

And that is where we leave it today.

In two weeks, the siege kicks up a gear.

The 71-year-old sultan was on his last legs, but so too was Szigetvárr Fortress.

In the next episode, we introduce the star of the show, the Hungarian Croatian hero

Count Nikola Zrinsky IV.

Like Suleiman, Zrinsky was a man of contradictions, and like Suleiman, he was determined to make

this siege a crowning achievement of his life's work.

Before I close this episode, I wanted to let you guys know that we're coming up to the

end of another season.

For new listeners, as an FYI, I usually take a break of a month or two between seasons

so I can get a head start on research.

At the end of each season, I usually do an end of season summary kind of thing, and for

this time, I thought it might be fun to do an Ask Me Anything.

So if you have any questions, either about myself, the show, the sources we use, anything

you'd like, you can submit questions to me on Instagram, at Anthology of Heroes, through

our email, anthologyofheroespodcast, at gmail.com, or if you wanted to get a bit fancy, you could

use our voicemail bit on our website, and that way I can actually use your voice in

the Ask Me Anything episode, depending on how many we get that is.

Once again, that's Instagram, at anthologyofheroes, an email, anthologyofheroespodcast, or one

word, at gmail.com.

You can also find all those links in the show notes on your podcast player.

As usual, this episode of Anthology of Heroes is brought to you by the show's patrons.

For just $3 US, you can get access to all our episodes ad free, and you have the opportunity

to do a voiceover on one of our episodes if you'd like to.

Our generous patrons are Luke, Shane, Alan, Jim, Lisa, Phil, Seth, Alex, Malcolm, Caleb,

Tom, and Claudia.

Big thanks to all of you.

See you on the next one.