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Survival of the cruellest in 16th-century Constantinople

It was kill or be killed for the Ottoman sultan’s heirs in a bizarre succession ritual involving the ruthless culling of close relatives

15 March 2025

9:00 AM

15 March 2025

9:00 AM

The Golden Throne: The Curse of a King Christopher de Bellaigue

Bodley Head, pp.249, 22

The 16th-century Ottoman ruler Sultan Suleyman liked to impose himself on foreign monarchs from the start, always beginning official letters with the uncompromising assertion: ‘I am the great lord and conqueror of the whole world.’ In this sparkling account of his middle years, the second in an ambitious three-volume biography, Christopher de Bellaigue never actually describes Suleyman as ‘the magnificent’, his most widely known epithet.

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