To the passage of armies on their way to victory the people of the great city had now become familiar as in the greatest days of the Empire. Thirteen times, it is said, did Suleiman pass through the gates on warlike expeditions and thirteen times did he return a conqueror. He led his forces to the walls of Vienna, and though he was at length compelled to withdraw, he inflicted a blow on the Empire which it took long to recover, and he showed to Europe that a new and terrible power had come to take part in the affairs of the West. In Persia, if he was not entirely successful, yet he added new territories to the Empire. A pirate fleet under his sanction swept the seas. He defeated the combined fleets of Spain, Italy, and Venice. During a reign of forty-six years he kept Europe and Asia at war. But his greatest triumphs were not those of the battlefield. He made the great Sovereigns of Christendom count him as their equal. Every prince of the time was anxious to enter into negotiation with him. Their envoys came to Constantinople, and were treated as suppliants. To every indignity they submitted for the sake of winning the alliance of "the grand Turk," the Sultan whom Europe came to call "the magnificent."
France was the first to make alliance with the infidel; and in spite of the papal curse the Mohammedan power was introduced as a prominent actor in the politics of Europe by the most Christian King, Francis I. The Sultan of sultans, King of kings, giver of crowns to the kings of the world, the shadow of God upon the earth, Suleiman, the ever victorious, assured the prostrate King of France that he need not fear, for that every hour his horse was saddled, his sword girt on, and he was ready to defend and to overthrow. A solemn treaty in February 1535 united France and Turkey in bonds of perpetual amity. It was renewed in 1553; and the alliance remained an important fact in the politics of Europe for more than two hundred years.
Renowned for his victories in diplomacy and war, Suleiman's fame was even greater as a patron of art and letters. It was through him first that the Christendom of the sixteenth century heard of the glories of Eastern literature, and that Europe began to imitate Asia. It was the great age of Turkish poets. The court of Suleiman was thronged by poets who vied with each other in celebrating the glories of their master. Every bazaar of the East rang with his praises: in far distant lands the ingenious verse-makers made his victories, his pleasures, his magnificence, the theme of their elaborate compositions. Trade poured into Stambûl. All the riches of the East, the wonderful carpets and embroideries, the exquisite metal-work, the dignified designs of the pen and the brush, fixed their natural home in the court of the magnificent Suleiman. Under him the architecture of the Moslems reached its culmination: the splendid mosque named after him, with the türbehs around it, represent the great work of his age, worthy of commemoration as lengthy as that which Procopius gave to the edifices of his sovereign. Great as conqueror, as builder, and as restorer of ancient work, Suleiman may well be called, in yet another aspect, the Turkish Justinian. He was great also as a legislator, and his work completed that of Mohammed II. He laid down the limits of the privileges of the Ulemas, the powers of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the Grand Vizier. Financial organisation, so essential to the security of his conquests, was made under his rule into an elaborate system. The penal code was revised, simplified, and, on the whole, rendered less severe. Every change, every reform, showed the guiding genius of the great Sultan; arbitrary as the worst of his race, unrestrained always in the exercise of his authority, he yet showed an Eastern despotism at its best, animated by a zeal for justice, for regularity, for the welfare of the people.
Suleiman, whose name exercised so great a fascination over the imagination of the West, was the hero, Christian romancers thought, of a grand passion. The name of Roxelana became famous in the drama and poetry of Europe. Her story was indeed a striking one. Khurrem, "the joyous one," was a Russian captive, who, in the later years of the mighty Sultan, obtained an absolute control over him. From a slave, placed among hundreds of other captives in the harem, she rose to be herself Sultan,[35] the wife of the Commander of the Faithful.
It was contrary to all precedent that Suleiman deposed the mother of his eldest son from her rank and made Roxelana Sultan. The French Ambassador accounts for the elevation in this way. "Roxelana wished to found a mosque for the weal of her soul, but the mufti told her that the pious works of a slave turned only to the advantage of her lord: upon this special ground Suleiman declared her free. This was immediately followed by the second step. The free woman would no longer comply with those desires of Suleiman which the bondswoman had obeyed, for the fetwa of the mufti declared that this could not be without sin. Passion on the one side and obstinacy on the other at last brought it about that Suleiman made her his wife. A treaty of marriage was ratified, and Roxelana was secured an income of 5000 sultanins."[36]
The extraordinary influence which this remarkable woman exercised over the great Sultan was new, it seemed, to the Empire; it was not only new, but destructive to the military system of the Turks that any special attachment should be formed which should attract the Sultan to the home rather than the camp. The Sultans, with all their gross pleasures, had been ever warriors ready to desert everything for their military duties, and had ruled their Empire as well as their army solely by their own will. Suleiman seemed to open the way to influences which would be destructive to the Turkish power; and one of the greatest of the Viziers a century later said that all his successors were fools or tyrants.
Be this so or not, Suleiman and Roxelana were unique in Turkish history. Their devotion to each other appeared to be complete: and the passionate love which grew rather than diminished with years, marked the history of the court with the stains of sacrifice and crime. Mustafa, the Sultan's eldest son, stood in the way of the children of Khurrem. The Vizier Rustem Pacha was her devoted slave, owing to her his elevation to the dignity of the Sultan's vicegerent. He brought to Suleiman reports that Mustafa was allying with the Shah of Persia to dethrone him, and was winning the Janissaries to his side, a charge to which his valour and ability, and his great popularity with the soldiers, might seem to give some colour. Suleiman himself, on his Syrian campaign, ordered his son to appear before him. On September 21, 1553—the day was long remembered—the gallant Mustafa was brought with great pomp and ceremony to the tent of the Sultan. When he entered he found only the seven mutes armed with the fatal bowstring. He was seized, and before he could utter more than one cry, he was murdered. The thick tapestry at the back of the tent was drawn aside and Suleiman entered to gaze upon the body of his son.
Even then the vengeance was not complete. The child of the murdered Mustafa was stabbed at Brusa in his mother's arms. The horror that was felt at these crimes became evident when the Janissaries demanded the punishment of Rustem, and when Djihanghir, the son of Suleiman and Roxelana, died of grief for the brother to whom he was devoted. The new grand Vizier was sacrificed also: and not long afterwards the beautiful Roxelana, Khurrem, passed away. The great Sultan gave her the most beautiful of tombs. The art of the Mussulmans was centered in that last home which the love of Suleiman could bestow.
"Without, the scented roses twine,
The Suleymanieh tow'rs o'erhead,