Vulgar History - International, part 6： Hürrem Sultan, Sultana Era (pt 2⧸2)

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, it's me, Anne Foster. Before we get into this week's episode, I want to let you know

00:00:05.180 about a fundraiser that I'm doing. Inspired by the life and philanthropy of Harem Sultan,

00:00:11.260 I've put a new t-shirt design at vulgarhistory.store, and all proceeds from this design

00:00:15.940 through to the end of May will be donated to World Central Kitchen. It's a blue shirt that

00:00:20.540 says Hasaki, which is the title given to Harem as Suleiman's favorite. I decided to do this

00:00:26.160 because of harem's ties to the country of ukraine which is currently facing crisis due to attacks

00:00:30.940 from the russian forces as you'll hear about in this week's episode harem herself was very

00:00:35.540 committed to giving to charity especially for people in need she funded hospitals schools

00:00:39.860 soup kitchens and fountains of clean drinking water in numerous cities i chose world central

00:00:44.500 kitchen is the recipient of money raised from this fundraiser because their work providing fresh

00:00:49.140 nutritious meals to people in areas of crisis feels similar to the work that harem herself

00:00:53.480 supported, and they are currently helping out in Ukraine and nearby areas. So from now until the

00:00:59.720 end of May, when you buy one of the Hasaki teas from vulgarhistory.store, the proceeds will all

00:01:05.880 go to World Central Kitchen. And if you want to support World Central Kitchen without buying a

00:01:11.080 t-shirt, visit wck.org. 0.51

00:01:23.480 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.

00:01:34.280 My name is Anne Foster and this is the second part of a special two-part episode about Harem

00:01:40.180 Sultan. If you haven't listened to the first part yet, I recommend listening to that first

00:01:44.600 just to like learn the first half of this story. But if you don't feel like doing that,

00:01:50.120 you know follow your bliss just listen to this first and after that you might want to listen to

00:01:55.180 part one you do you i want to this week shout out the islamic history podcast which is a podcast

00:02:04.860 that's been around for a few years it's had uh seven seasons so far and they have a number of

00:02:09.820 episodes that discuss the ottoman empire from an islamic point of view and they're really helpful

00:02:14.700 to further understand the context of what harem and soleiman's life was like um yeah it's a really

00:02:21.180 informative podcast and so how they describe themselves is it's a podcast that seeks to

00:02:26.100 explore the many stories that make up the current world of islam they describe the podcast as they

00:02:31.220 do more than rehash old tales they explore hidden side alleys most would rather not see

00:02:35.700 we not only want to know what happened we want to know why it happened so just a podcast

00:02:42.400 recommendation the it's called the islamic history podcast and diving right back in i guess so last

00:02:49.420 time we ended things on a cliffhanger where suleyman freed harem from slavery after they'd

00:02:55.720 had you know five children together and been monogamous for 15 years or something

00:02:59.260 and he did that so that he could marry her and what happens next you are about to find out

00:03:06.940 so note this wasn't like they had to wait for Hafsa to die because she wouldn't get permission

00:03:12.620 to get married and I believe on Magnificent Century the shock like they get secret sexy

00:03:18.080 married and then tell her and the shock of that kills her or something like that in real life

00:03:22.320 the thing is like out of respect for her Suleiman would never marry her while she's still alive

00:03:28.220 because that marriage would have dishonored her the queen mother by diminishing her status as

00:03:32.840 the ranking female of the dynasty like they didn't want because harem would defend would become more 0.95

00:03:38.640 powerful so they waited until she died to do this but of respect not because she was like stopping 1.00

00:03:43.740 them probably and our best friends the venetian ambassadors messy bitches who loved spreading 1.00

00:03:50.560 rumors so 15 years after this marriage one of them wrote a letter to the hapsburg emperor claiming 1.00

00:03:57.160 that harem had refused to have sex with sulaiman unless he married her aka the anne boleyn maneuver 0.82

00:04:02.860 which is possible but that's also leaning into the whole like harem is this like person who uses sex 0.93

00:04:07.500 to manipulate sulaiman where it's like at this point sex can only manipulate someone so much

00:04:13.640 really one would think i think this is more just like they were a pair they were a full partnership

00:04:19.880 and to like well they wanted to make the partnership official which couldn't happen

00:04:25.860 until she was freed from slavery and they were officially married so and also another reason why

00:04:34.700 they likely got married when they did so quickly so hafza died and suleiman was about to go out of

00:04:39.380 town on another military campaign and he needed in the absence of his mother someone to be his

00:04:43.560 eyes and ears in istanbul someone who he could trust completely and harem couldn't do that if 0.83

00:04:50.560 She was living in the old palace, in the harem. 0.98

00:04:53.300 By marrying her, she was able to, well, by marrying him,

00:04:57.680 she was able to set up a second living space in the new palace,

00:05:00.620 allowing her to be closer to the pulse of politics,

00:05:03.360 as with her son Mehmed, who was just turning 13.

00:05:06.560 And this was another significant break from established customs.

00:05:09.460 Prior to this, if you remember Mehmed the Conqueror,

00:05:13.760 Suleiman's great-grandfather, who made a lot of rules,

00:05:16.860 so he kind of changed things in his way,

00:05:18.400 and then Suleiman just kind of changed things.

00:05:20.560 differently. Mehmed the Conqueror had made a decree in which no women would be allowed to

00:05:26.540 reside in the same building where government affairs were conducted. And Suleiman was like,

00:05:30.960 until now. So Haram was given a suite of rooms adjacent to Suleiman's. Attendants and servants 0.59

00:05:36.180 accompanied her from the old palace. And this led the way to one of Haram's greatest legacies,

00:05:41.220 the transformation of the royal Haram into a political force. In fact, so after she had died, 0.95

00:05:46.780 like by the end of the century this had turned into a regularized institution in the ottoman 0.91

00:05:51.180 government consisting of the upper echelon of royal women living and working from the political 0.75

00:05:55.560 heart of the empire the new palace simultaneously the old palace retained its role as a training

00:06:01.540 institution for like new the newly enslaved and a home for retired harem women and this setup which

00:06:08.100 started under harem remained throughout the rest of the ottoman empire history so she took on a

00:06:15.600 role that looks an awful lot like that of queen slash co-monarch like queen in the sense of

00:06:21.320 woman with power not just wife of king she was hasaki she was the mother of three princess so

00:06:28.240 for the past 13 years that she'd had these children she'd already been politically important 1.00

00:06:31.960 um and she might have even had her own spy network but now she inherited the whole infrastructure

00:06:38.060 from hafsa took it and ran with it so upon her marriage she acquired the title hasaki sultan

00:06:44.660 so the addition when you put sultan after a woman's name or title it indicates her membership

00:06:51.000 in the dynastic family so she was not just hasaki she was hasaki sultan and that's how a lot of

00:06:57.560 people referred to her because again they didn't deserve to know her name so this title reflected

00:07:03.300 her great power and status higher than that of the ottoman princesses making her the equal of

00:07:08.460 Empress's consort in Europe. So they got married and then Suleiman was away for almost two years.

00:07:16.000 The marriage was a very much just kind of like paperwork signing situation. It wasn't like a

00:07:19.660 wedding. It was kind of like, he's going away. Let's just like get this done so she could move

00:07:23.860 into the new palace. And then she did. But once he was back in town, they had a giant mega wedding

00:07:30.380 celebration. So 1536, there was a magnificent formal ceremony for these newlyweds who were,

00:07:36.300 bear in mind parents of five surviving children and had been in a monogamous relationship for 15

00:07:41.360 years. A chronicler in Istanbul wrote at the time, this week there has occurred in the city a most

00:07:47.820 extraordinary event, one absolutely unprecedented in the history of the sultans. Suleyman has taken

00:07:53.720 to himself as his empress a slave woman from Russia. There is great talk about the marriage 0.97

00:07:58.780 and none can say what it means. Houses were festooned with garlands, streets illuminated

00:08:04.560 with candles and there were tournaments feasts and processions held giraffes were on the scene

00:08:09.500 it was a big deal but again everyone was just like what is happening everyone's still confused 0.55

00:08:17.360 like keep up come on prior to the marriage harem had not been a public person because she was a 1.00

00:08:22.660 concubine and enslaved and that's how that life was but once she was freed and then married 1.00

00:08:29.920 as hasaki sultan she was now kept from the public for a different reason which was because she was 0.61

00:08:35.800 so important so she began to practice what's called an imperial seclusion she was not a

00:08:42.080 prisoner but she was such a special and important person she was kept away kind of from everyone

00:08:48.240 in a way that reminds me of kind of like beyonce or even like taylor swift where someone is so

00:08:57.020 rich and so powerful that they can choose to just not let you see them or know what they're up to

00:09:03.860 and in this culture the culture harem lived in a woman of virtue was recognized by her seclusion

00:09:09.540 so like the more secluded you were like the more important you were so and the wealthier you were

00:09:13.940 the more opulent your seclusion could be so again she's in these like magnificent palaces like these

00:09:20.000 huge like mall of america sized complexes and it's not like when i say secluded like she was

00:09:29.000 surrounded by other important people it's just less important people weren't allowed to see her

00:09:34.500 because why would they unlike other times when suleiman was out of town like before they were

00:09:40.320 married she was just kind of left in the old palace and she like did what she could from there 0.93

00:09:45.140 but now she's in the new palace so when he was out of town she's able to like get shit done 0.77

00:09:48.880 she was in fact or she became the first woman in ottoman history to concern herself with state 0.91

00:09:54.240 affairs she acted as suleiman's chief advisor on matters of state and seems to have had an

00:09:58.880 influence upon foreign policy and international politics she frequently accompanied him as a

00:10:04.000 political advisor she imprinted her seal i guess on documents and she watched council meetings 1.00

00:10:09.600 through a wire mesh window wasn't that that was agrippina right in ancient roman times like women 1.00

00:10:15.760 couldn't go to these meetings but so Agrippina like hid behind a curtain or something so Haram 1.00

00:10:20.620 was this is where I mean she was so capable of taking on this political role like Suleiman

00:10:28.860 kind of lucked out that he found her right away because she's so exactly the person that he wanted

00:10:34.200 to have there with him because she was so smart and intelligent and bearing in mind this is like

00:10:39.040 not her first language and she had been like traumatized through the whole slavery as a 12

00:10:45.620 world like she was so well suited to this role and it's fortunate that she was able to take on

00:10:53.740 this role her influence on Suleiman was so significant the rumors circulated that the 0.92

00:10:58.540 sultan had been bewitched yes again so it's just like what this woman is like the sultan is letting

00:11:04.000 her like be involved in stuff like it can't just be that he like sees she's smart and respects her 0.74

00:11:09.860 opinion it has to be that she's a sexy witch um but then because she wasn't allowed to meet with 0.99

00:11:16.040 people other than the people who she was surrounded by because the whole like seclusion scenario she 1.00

00:11:21.080 invented a new way to be a diplomat which was basically pen pals so the ottoman empire had 1.00

00:11:26.880 made use of female diplomats before but these had been the mothers or aunts of sultans never the wife 1.00

00:11:33.020 because there hadn't been a wife before so she couldn't go in person to do like you know a little 0.97

00:11:38.580 trip to poland or whatever so she started writing letters to help her husband build alliances and

00:11:44.700 keep peace one of her pen pals was the king of poland marking the only the first and only time

00:11:49.660 in the ottoman empire that a woman from the dynastic family exchanged letters with a foreign

00:11:56.320 king after that although some of harem's successors exchanged letters with queens there's no other

00:12:01.440 example of a woman who personally contacted a king after this so her influence with selimon made her

00:12:07.840 one of the most powerful women in ottoman history and in the world at the time because the ottoman

00:12:11.900 empire was like super powerful in the world and again he was like always off on business trips

00:12:17.600 and so like his mother had done before harem wrote frequently to soleiman to keep him up to date on

00:12:22.840 what was going on because she was his eyes and ears and she was really good at doing that and

00:12:27.480 it's from some of these letters which are still around today that we get some sense of what she

00:12:31.460 was like as a person and it's interesting to see because people who've looked at these letters

00:12:35.860 describe how the first letters kind of show she's writing in like cautious Turkish like she's still

00:12:41.200 learning that written language but as the years go by she becomes clearly fluent. Her writing style

00:12:46.620 is lively and affectionate showing why she was given the name meaning joyful. Even as she reached

00:12:52.640 the pinnacle of political power she never lost her sense of playfulness. Having looked at translations

00:12:57.120 of one of her letters I would say I would agree with this assessment that her writing not unlike

00:13:02.620 like that of Britney Spears' Instagram post captions,

00:13:05.940 has been described as cryptic and hard to follow.

00:13:09.440 So she wrote often about the health

00:13:11.400 of their youngest son, Chihan Gier,

00:13:12.840 who had ongoing health issues,

00:13:14.680 or being treated by the doctors,

00:13:15.860 and so she knew Suleiman would want to know about that.

00:13:18.440 She also wrote affectionately to him.

00:13:20.500 Here is, I'm going to read,

00:13:22.160 an excerpt from one of Haram's letters to Suleiman,

00:13:25.500 which is just like,

00:13:27.060 anyone who's ever missed somebody will get this.

00:13:30.200 but also you see this sort of like britney spears instagram post sort of chaotic style in which she

00:13:35.860 wrote she wrote quote if you ask about me your servant who has caught fire from the zeal of

00:13:41.160 missing you i am like the one whose liver which to them means heart has been broiled whose chest

00:13:47.700 has been ruined whose eyes are filled with tears who cannot distinguish any more between night and

00:13:52.060 day who has fallen into the sea of yearning desperate mad with your love this passionate

00:13:56.960 love of yours your slave is burning because i have been separated from you like a nightingale

00:14:01.680 whose sighs and cries for help do not cease i am in such a state due to being away from you

00:14:06.100 i would pray to allah to not afflict this pain even upon your enemies my dearest sultan as it

00:14:11.780 has been one and a half months since i last heard from you allah knows that i have been crying night

00:14:16.300 and day waiting for you to come back home while i was crying without knowing what to do the one

00:14:20.640 and only allah allowed me to receive good news from you once i heard the news allah knows i came

00:14:26.020 to life once more since I had died while waiting for you. My dearest sultan, I'm begging Allah for

00:14:31.360 you to send me your blessed letters. Believe me when I say this, if I cannot hear a word from you

00:14:36.000 more than two weeks, the world collapses. There will be rumors about your well-being around the

00:14:40.880 city. Please do not think that I want to hear from you just for my own sake. In case you're worried,

00:14:45.820 Suleiman didn't feel as passionately in return, don't worry, because he wrote poems for her

00:14:51.400 like this one quote throne of my lonely niche my wealth my love my moonlight my most sincere friend

00:14:59.960 my confidant my very existence my sultan my one and only love the most beautiful among the

00:15:05.380 beautiful my springtime my merry face love my daytime my sweetheart laughing leaf my plants

00:15:11.700 my sweet my rose the only one who does not distress me in this world my istanbul my karaman

00:15:17.280 the earth of my Anatolia, my Badekshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan, my woman of the beautiful hair,

00:15:24.380 my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of mischief, I'll sing your praises always.

00:15:30.600 I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibi of the eyes full of tears, I am happy. I mean, if I say

00:15:38.000 that I ship it, like, what's one level above that? This is like Pedro I. Inez level, just like

00:15:46.320 shipping it this is like cornea kardashii and travis barker just like two people who are so

00:15:52.980 in love and just like can't stop being happy about it so however the relationship began

00:16:00.560 e.g with her enslaved and him as the sultan she was freed they had been married and they were

00:16:06.840 basically equals he was the most powerful man in the ottoman empire she was the most powerful woman

00:16:11.660 they were parents of five and obviously still madly in love with each other years after they

00:16:18.120 had gotten together which again can't emphasize this enough was so confusing to literally everybody

00:16:23.420 our pal the venetian ambassador wrote suleiman's love was the reason that the janissaries and the

00:16:29.120 entire court hate harem and her children likewise but because the sultan loves her no one dares to

00:16:33.980 speak and certainly um the janissaries especially the ones who had been spending time in manisa

00:16:40.300 with Mahidevran and Mustafa sided with them against Haram because Mahidevran's main goal

00:16:48.440 was still for Mustafa to become the new sultan. So they would be downplaying Haram and her children

00:16:53.080 to make them seem less suitable to inherit. But Haram had no time for the haters. And shortly

00:16:59.420 after Suleiman's return from yet another military campaign, she began planning for her first

00:17:04.720 philanthropic building project this was like just after their wedding so as the wife of the sultan

00:17:10.600 harem recognized that she should give back proportionately to her own wealth and power

00:17:15.420 and the islamic religion has charitable giving as a core tenet and obligation

00:17:20.400 as does christianity and judaism and these are the three religions practiced across the ottoman

00:17:25.060 empire also sort of cannily giving back to charity was also a way for the subjects to feel closer and

00:17:32.440 more appreciative towards her especially given her unconventional role and background and how 0.90

00:17:36.760 people thought she was an evil sexy witch etc if anything would win the hearts of the ottoman

00:17:41.820 subjects in a lasting way it was a building that offered benefits to ordinary people and also this

00:17:48.220 is a culture that disapproved of physical representation of the sovereign on statues

00:17:51.920 portraits or on coins yes you will notice there's been no coin minting moments here

00:17:55.600 so monumental architecture was the most obvious demonstration of wealth and influence what is

00:18:01.600 called a foundation which at first i thought meant like um a charitable foundation but this

00:18:07.700 basically means a group of buildings that she commissioned to be built so a foundation it's

00:18:11.700 like laying the foundation for buildings so her first foundation included a mosque two religious

00:18:17.500 schools a public water fountain and a women's hospital and the location and timing of this

00:18:23.560 architectural debut mark her maverick status in the culture she's living in so usually 0.99

00:18:31.120 philanthropic giving was a privilege of mature political motherhood like somebody would do this 0.98

00:18:35.920 when they were the mother of the sultan not the wife because again they're not been a wife but

00:18:39.580 she was just like 34 years old life just getting started her foundation was the first in istanbul

00:18:44.420 donated by and called after a woman it was called the hasaki after her the way that was the name

00:18:51.680 that the people knew her by it was the first foundation constructed in the builder's own name

00:18:56.000 by a member of the current royal generation like people built stuff to honor their ancestors but

00:19:00.500 not themselves until now and so while she obviously would have gotten advice from other people about

00:19:07.140 where to build her buildings especially because she had like never left the palace the final

00:19:11.620 decision seems like it's got her name all over it like of the option she was given she chose 0.97

00:19:16.120 to build this foundation in a neighborhood associated with females so it was in an area 0.80

00:19:20.840 that held a weekly women's market where women sold their works and wares ottoman culture meant 0.98

00:19:27.520 that um women's this is phrased as like women's relationship with communal spaces remained

00:19:32.440 limited like women couldn't just go anywhere so like this women's market was a place where women

00:19:36.320 entrepreneurs could sell their stuff to other women so this is a place called avrat pazar 0.90

00:19:41.400 the women's market was an important urban area for women and so she built this structure that 0.96

00:19:48.540 was of great benefit to the women of this neighborhood so they could pray in the mosque

00:19:53.140 they could line up for the water fountain they could get food from the soup kitchen the area

00:19:58.560 in which it was located in modern day istanbul is still officially known as hasaki i think the

00:20:02.780 foundation itself is still there too there are again if you look up istanbul tourism there are

00:20:08.900 so many buildings from this era still around it's just all kinds of beautiful mosques and buildings

00:20:15.080 And Harem funded this herself because she was now free and had her own money.

00:20:20.780 Culturally, as a person with a lot of money, like a wealthy person, this put a lot of pressure.

00:20:25.960 Well, not pressure, but it just meant her obligation to give was greater because it's like the richer you are, the more money you should give back. 0.98

00:20:33.820 That was kind of how that's just kind of the Islamic thing.

00:20:38.520 So there was a profound obligation to give, especially in her society of this day.

00:20:43.200 and so the richer she was the more she was able to give and the more people probably expected her

00:20:48.020 to and if you're just like wow what a cool woman she did charity but uh like now we're getting it

00:20:53.120 into murder so murder corner part one so one of Suleiman's best bros was a guy named Ibrahim Pasha

00:21:00.680 Ibrahim had been born a Christian in Venice and then was enslaved during his youth and then he

00:21:05.880 and Suleiman became close friends when Suleiman became sultan he appointed Ibrahim as grand

00:21:10.760 vizier, which is like his top advisor. Following the death of Hafsa, the two most important people

00:21:17.160 in Suleyman's life were Harem and his best friend Ibrahim. And so kind of reasonably,

00:21:22.640 and we've seen this in so many other stories, these two are likely rivals for which one of

00:21:26.440 them would he listen to, especially if they didn't agree on the advice they were giving.

00:21:30.300 So the thing with Ibrahim is he was very successful in his role and allegedly as his 0.62

00:21:35.500 power grew so did his arrogance and maybe because he didn't like harem he supported mustafa as

00:21:42.940 suleiman's heir rather than the sons of harem so at just during the same time that suleiman

00:21:48.940 returned to istanbul and there was the big wedding festival he ordered the execution of

00:21:53.800 ibrahim and ibrahim was garrotted with a bow string while he lay in bed in his private room

00:21:59.400 so clearly like putting on my csi hat this is a man who did not expect this was going to happen

00:22:04.880 and especially because apparently that same night he'd just broken the ramadan fast with

00:22:09.740 suleiman earlier that night so he didn't know this was going to happen he was executed the

00:22:14.200 manner of execution was what was usually how royals were executed but also like suleiman we

00:22:19.960 know ordered the execution on magnificent century the tv show for dramatic purposes obviously haram

00:22:25.780 manipulates suleiman into ordering the death of ibrahim because she wanted to get him out of the

00:22:29.440 way as a threat to her and her sons this was put in the show because it was a widespread gossipy

00:22:34.140 rumor since basically the time this murder happened and maybe is true i do not know again

00:22:39.360 it's just kind of like how much did harem just like manipulate suleiman like a puppet and how

00:22:44.140 much did she just explain things to him and then he made his own choices whether she convinced

00:22:50.360 suleiman to kill ibrahim or not the death of ibrahim was a good thing for harem because that

00:22:55.500 was one less person for her to worry about getting close to suleiman made her have more power because

00:23:00.080 his attention wasn't being spread and one less supporter of Mustafa for her to worry about

00:23:05.200 and so there's no contemporary evidence she had anything to do with this but like of course there's

00:23:11.620 not like why would there be like her personal diary like ma ha ha here's what I did like if

00:23:17.220 she was involved why would she leave clues so then there were three other grand viziers in eight

00:23:21.460 years I guess he was like trying out different people for the job and eventually Suleiman

00:23:25.020 Suleyman selected Rustem Pasha, who is his son-in-law, the husband of their daughter Mirama, to become the new grand vizier.

00:23:33.140 And this was yet another break from protocol.

00:23:35.380 Like, Suleyman did nothing other than break from protocol, apparently.

00:23:38.540 Prior to this, there had been a tradition forbidding relatives of the sultan to hold important political positions.

00:23:43.360 But now his son-in-law was the new vizier.

00:23:47.720 Coincidentally, Rustem obviously supported Harem's children as the next sultan.

00:23:53.880 Um, so when their oldest sons, Mehmed and Salim came of age, both left Istanbul to start

00:24:02.120 up their own households.

00:24:02.900 And this was one of the things that had been confusing people all along. 0.93

00:24:06.120 Cause usually it's like, there's one son per woman and the woman accompanied that son when 0.82

00:24:09.640 he went off to start his own household. 0.80

00:24:11.880 But they're like, but she has more than one son.

00:24:13.420 So which one is she going to choose?

00:24:14.880 So she chose neither of them.

00:24:18.020 Um, this was another major change, making her the only mother of princes who remain 0.56

00:24:22.120 in istanbul for her whole life rather than leaving with her sons who knows she had her

00:24:26.540 reasons but one of them might have been the chihangir the youngest son who was disabled

00:24:30.900 might have needed her more than his older brothers did at this point and then 1543 their oldest son

00:24:37.720 mehmed contracted smallpox and died in manisa age 21 his body was returned to istanbul for funeral

00:24:44.780 celebrations and Suleiman's grief was legendary like literally he wept for more than two hours

00:24:52.240 at his son's burial refusing to let the body be interred then he attended prayers for 40 days

00:24:57.580 instead of the customary three he dressed in black to reflect his grief for all these 40 days which

00:25:02.740 meant everyone else had to dress in black too we don't know how Huram behaved because nobody wrote

00:25:07.780 about her but one can assume similarly Mehmed had been seemingly their favorite son he was also

00:25:14.280 their oldest son and also as the eldest so that was harem's first child she had him when she was

00:25:19.500 17 and his birth changed her life entirely because it elevated her rank and he was the start of this

00:25:25.420 nuclear family that she had assembled in place of whatever family she had to leave behind in kiev 0.88

00:25:29.860 and rus harem and her daughter mirama were not present at the funeral prayers because women

00:25:34.880 didn't participate in public funerals which is part of why we don't know what their reactions

00:25:38.620 were like. Suleyman hired the famed imperial architect Mimar Sinan, who was the same one

00:25:45.420 who had designed Haram's first foundation, to build the Shezade Mosque in Istanbul to commemorate

00:25:50.240 Mehmed. Shezade, again, being the title referring to being son of the sultan. Suleyman, who remember

00:25:55.580 was a poet, composed an elegy for Mehmed, and the poem ends with the line, most distinguished of

00:26:02.260 the princess, my sultan Mehmed. And the death of his oldest son changed Suleiman's behavior. Like

00:26:09.320 usually he had been going on constant military campaigns, but after Mehmed died, Suleiman

00:26:14.280 stayed in Istanbul for the next four and a half years. So this is the longest period of time he

00:26:18.300 and Harem had been together ever. And this also meant he got to spend more time with their youngest

00:26:23.780 son, Chihangir, who is clever and talkative. Suleiman brought him with him everywhere, like

00:26:29.000 take your son to work day sort of thing like chihangir just sounds like a real charmer chihangir

00:26:34.380 also spent time with haram acting as her travel companion when she went on solo journeys to visit 0.66

00:26:38.860 the older brothers off where they were living and now after that nice family moment murder corner

00:26:44.840 part two this is the second murder which later historians suggest haram was complicit or

00:26:50.320 responsible for and this is the death of mustafa the son of mahida ron so 1553 sulaiman has been

00:26:57.620 in power for 34 years, and his son Mustafa, age 38, has been governor in Manisa for 20 years.

00:27:04.540 Mahidevran's still there with him, doing amazing, clearly, because there's so much support for

00:27:09.600 Mustafa. One part I haven't mentioned yet is that Ottoman sultans were often paranoid that their

00:27:14.600 grown sons might rebel against them, and for this reason they would sometimes manipulate their sons 0.98

00:27:19.920 to become drunks and playboys too busy fucking around to be a threat. Not so with Mustafa, who 0.98

00:27:26.680 was well-respected and again 38 years old like an adult and he'd been in the same place for so long

00:27:32.780 so he'd really developed a lot of good relationships with the people in Manisa as had his mother

00:27:37.040 um and the people around him were encouraging him to overthrow his father to become the new sultan

00:27:43.260 so rumors slash information reaches Suleiman and Mustafa Mustafa has been scheming against him

00:27:49.300 apparently Mustafa is even referring to himself as sultan and so Suleiman what can he do

00:27:56.300 he orders the execution of mustafa although we don't know if mustafa actually was scheming against

00:28:03.700 him or not but we do know so as per the article that i use for reference from daily saba.com

00:28:10.740 quote although he was courageous mustafa he lacked two qualities that were more important

00:28:16.020 patience and cautiousness so what does harem have to do with this well the thing is like did harem

00:28:23.000 frame Mustafa to make him look like he was doing this secret scheming so the theory goes like

00:28:29.320 Haram may be conspired against Mustafa to frame him for treason with the help of her daughter

00:28:34.120 Mirama and Mirama's husband Rustam Pasha the vizier so they wanted to portray Mustafa as a

00:28:40.160 traitor who secretly contacted the Shah of Iran so allegedly acting on the orders of Haram

00:28:46.080 Rustam Pasha had engraved Mustafa's seal and sent a letter seemingly written from him to Shah

00:28:52.000 shot tamaz the first in iran and then sent the shah's response to suleiman so basically framing

00:28:58.540 mustafa for treason but mustafa didn't actually write the letter um and here's one for your bingo

00:29:03.460 sheets uh gruesome execution so mustafa's execution was gruesome with more than one

00:29:09.660 botched attempt to strangle him which remember they the way the royal people were killed was

00:29:14.320 like garrotted with a bowstring the executioners only succeeded when he tripped on his robe trying

00:29:19.520 to flee. His corpse was thrown outside Suleiman's tent as proof of the deed. Mustapha's household

00:29:25.000 was then symbolically erased. So Mustapha's son and the son's mother were captured and killed

00:29:29.600 while they were trying to flee. Mahitavran was stripped of her status as mother of the heir

00:29:33.540 apparent. And Harem now had two less threats to her and her husband's power and to one of her

00:29:38.840 sons becoming the new sultan. So there was a female poet who was like a writer in residence 0.96

00:29:43.840 at Mustapha's court who is called Nisai. And that sounds like an interesting person I'd like to know

00:29:48.880 about this female poet she composed an elegy for mustafa which in part goes quote you allowed the

00:29:55.900 words of a russian witch into your ears deluded by tricks and deceit you did the bidding of that 1.00

00:30:00.800 spiteful hag you slaughtered that swaying cypress fruit of life's orchard what has the merciless 0.97

00:30:06.720 monarch of the world done to sultan mustafa and as you can guess from that poem the killing of 0.83

00:30:13.240 Mustafa has been kind of the main point of Harem's notoriety

00:30:18.240 and the principal reason that history has vilified her,

00:30:21.420 assuming it was her influence that convinced Suleyman to kill Mustafa.

00:30:25.240 And again, there's no records from the time being like,

00:30:27.340 ha ha ha, I did it.

00:30:28.680 But like, of course there aren't.

00:30:30.380 So although some people from the time did accuse Rustem

00:30:34.480 of being the one to convince Suleyman to do this,

00:30:37.980 and implicitly by accusing him,

00:30:40.060 knowing that he was married to Mirama,

00:30:42.360 knowing that he was aligned with harem like that could be like implicitly accusing harem of being

00:30:47.580 involved and maybe she was but also suleiman was no fool and that's where all the stuff about him

00:30:53.980 being duped and controlled by harem falls apart because he was actually incredibly smart and i

00:30:58.240 always like to get advice from various people before making up his mind so whether or not this

00:31:03.120 letter was what did it the point remains like mustafa was popular there were rumors he rumors

00:31:08.900 he might work with the janissaries to try and usurp the throne whether he's doing it or not

00:31:13.180 like those rumors are damaging to suleiman there are also non-rumors like things that mustafa

00:31:19.380 actually had been doing like building support for himself to ensure that he became the next sultan

00:31:23.880 so he's clearly taking action but there's no evidence of a literal planned insurrection but

00:31:28.700 like what evidence would there be so this is like a choose your own adventure was mustafa actually

00:31:34.620 doing this stuff did harem actually frame him to get him executed and if she did was that maybe

00:31:41.860 a good thing because maybe he was planning insurrection like i don't know but this is one

00:31:46.300 of the like harem is an evil witch main plot lines so then that same year the same year that

00:31:53.160 mustafa was executed their youngest son chihangir died of a sudden illness very sad he was interred

00:32:00.740 together in the tomb of his older brother Mehmed, a memorial mosque for Chihangir was commissioned

00:32:05.760 on a hill overlooking the Bosphorus. Harem had suggested this place because the prince had

00:32:10.960 enjoyed excursions there and he had intended to commission a mosque there himself one day.

00:32:15.780 It was Suleiman who took action of this suggestion and the neighborhood today apparently still

00:32:20.120 retains the name of Chihangir. So the next era in Harem's life was mediating between her two

00:32:26.640 surviving sons Selim and Bayezid who were rivals because that's how this all works. Bayezid fell

00:32:33.000 into disfavor because he was apparently disobedient. Bayezid and Selim went into battle against each

00:32:40.600 other but Selim was supported by Suleiman's army because that's who Suleiman was supporting at the

00:32:47.860 time. Bayezid fled to the neighboring Safavid empire which is kind of around where modern-day

00:32:52.840 iran is but bigger and there the emperor received him lavishly but suleiman kept demanding that

00:32:58.600 beazid be put to death for betraying him and eventually suleiman paid enough money that the

00:33:04.460 um the shah there agreed and allowed beazid's execution by agents of suleiman this leaves us

00:33:12.420 just to like round up haram and suleiman had two surviving children mirama their daughter

00:33:18.180 and Selim, their son. But while this drama was happening, Harem continued with building

00:33:24.760 philanthropic foundations and writing letters of diplomacy. So the building she built. She built 0.94

00:33:31.600 a mosque complex in Adrianople, which is modern-day Edirne, Turkey, and Ankara. She commissioned a

00:33:38.680 bath called the Harem Sultan Bath House to serve the community of worshippers at the Hagia Sophia

00:33:44.080 in istanbul she also established a public soup kitchen in mecca as well as one in jerusalem called

00:33:49.680 hasaki sultan imarat which was a public soup kitchen to feed the poor which was said to feed

00:33:55.420 at least 500 people twice a day the charter deed to this complex the one in jerusalem hailed harem

00:34:01.320 as the quintessence of the queens among women the zubaida of her time and age who is unique and to

00:34:06.840 whom there is no second queen in prosperity and good fortune so just to understand the reference

00:34:11.680 zubaydah was a princess who had lived about 700 years before harem she was particularly 0.77

00:34:17.720 remembered for a series of wells reservoirs and artificial pools that provided water for

00:34:22.180 muslim pilgrims along the route from baghdad to mecca and medina now this route was renamed

00:34:27.820 the darb zubaydah in her favor fun fact the exploits of her and her husband harun al-rashid

00:34:33.860 formed part of the basis for a thousand and one nights they're like famous story some of the

00:34:38.460 charter deeds that harem drew up for her charitable foundation still survive in them we see her

00:34:43.480 repeatedly insist that the staff of her foundation be just as dedicated to treating the needy with

00:34:48.020 kindness as they were to dispense relief to them this special benevolence towards the enslaved

00:34:54.100 and also to women marginalized women shows that she never forgot her time in slavery and how she

00:35:00.060 came of age in the old palace among other foreign captives her philanthropic work far surpassed that

00:35:05.380 of any other ottoman women in volume and geographic reach and also set a model for future females of 0.88

00:35:10.480 the dynasty that would trickle down through to non-royal women as well in the sense of like 0.99

00:35:15.540 she gave back so much it inspired kind of all women to want to to give back as well several

00:35:22.800 of the monuments she commissioned still stand today as do many of the monuments that her work

00:35:26.820 inspired and then so seliman had been suffering from gout for a while and his doctors recommended

00:35:34.620 he spent winters in adrianople for fresh air and as he was the most important person in the world

00:35:40.580 he went there because his health was the most important thing but remember the letter from

00:35:46.920 harem who's like i haven't heard from you in a month and a half and like it is like i am dead

00:35:51.040 so she did not like it when he left obviously istanbul um as per one chronicler she was quote

00:35:58.940 the mistress of the life of this gentleman by whom she was extremely loved and because she wants him

00:36:03.280 always near her and is doubtful for her own life on account of illness she rarely or never lets

00:36:07.860 him part from her so this is because so haram was dealing with her own health problems at this point

00:36:13.740 as well this is like she's like in her 50s so istanbul like that's where she stayed because

00:36:20.160 that's where the best medical resources were so she had to stay there he was sent to adrianople

00:36:24.940 for air so they had to be apart in the winter and she was well taken care of like the reason why

00:36:30.460 she probably couldn't leave with him to adrianople was she needed the skilled health co-workers who

00:36:34.480 were in the old palace which were probably the best female health care team in the empire

00:36:38.440 and they could also call upon support from the hospital that she commissioned as well

00:36:42.460 and also being around her loved ones mirama her granddaughters and other longtime friends and

00:36:48.500 acquaintances was probably also good for her health and her spirits and then harem died april 15 1558

00:36:55.580 in the old palace aged around 55 the cause of death was a combination of her chronic condition

00:37:01.520 which we don't know what that was along with malaria and colic as you might imagine suleiman's

00:37:07.980 grief was extreme he apparently aged rapidly with her death ambassador to france wrote quote they

00:37:15.440 say the day before she died he promised her and swore by the soul of his father selim that he

00:37:19.600 would never approach another woman funeral prayers were held at the same mosque where the prayers for

00:37:24.260 Mehmed had been performed 15 years earlier. Haram's coffin was carried to the mosque from

00:37:29.520 the old palace on the shoulders of the viziers. And so she was interred in the cemetery enclosed

00:37:34.360 by the walls of the Suleymaniye Mosque, which is a mosque Suleyman had commissioned and which had

00:37:39.680 just been finished one year before she died. She was buried in a domed mausoleum, which you can

00:37:46.200 see videos of on YouTube and is beautiful and huge. The mausoleum is decorated in tiles depicting the

00:37:52.720 garden of paradise perhaps an homage to her smiling and joyful nature so yeah i'm gonna i'll put a link

00:37:59.280 right in the show notes to the youtube from barry istanbul tips because she goes into she looks at

00:38:05.700 this tomb like she goes inside and then she also looks at the old palace to give you a sense of

00:38:09.180 just the grandeur and the beauty of it all and how lovely a tribute this was to to harem a visiting

00:38:14.940 envoy from mecca kut beden el meki wrote quote it is said that her name was harem sultan the sultan

00:38:21.840 loved her to distraction, and his heart was broken with her death. In her honor, Suleiman

00:38:26.960 commissioned another mosque built in her name, along with a school and a hospital near the

00:38:31.060 women's market. Harem and Suleiman had been together for 37 years, and he continued on

00:38:38.340 living eight more years without her. Following her death, Suleiman relied heavily on their

00:38:44.460 daughter Mirama, who moved into the old palace to be, or sorry, who moved into the new palace

00:38:49.680 to be her father's companion following in her mother's footsteps mirama acted as suleiman's

00:38:55.160 counselor and sent him news and forwarded letters while he was away suleiman died in southern

00:39:00.260 hungary on a military campaign age 72 and it's a really good story so he died and the leaders of

00:39:07.020 the campaign didn't let the soldiers know he died because they thought that maybe the soldiers

00:39:12.520 wouldn't want to continue with the campaign if they knew he was dead so a guy named sokolu

00:39:18.840 Mehmed came up with a plan to pretend he was still alive so as not to affect morale.

00:39:23.700 A page was made up to impersonate Suleyman and wave from an imperial carriage, so like

00:39:27.920 not quite a weekend at Bernie's scenario, but kind of a weekend at Bernie's scenario.

00:39:32.400 This worked.

00:39:33.400 The army was victorious in capturing the fortress they'd been seizing two days after

00:39:37.040 Suleyman's secret death.

00:39:38.780 His heart and organs were buried where he died, but his body was brought back to Istanbul

00:39:42.340 for burial.

00:39:43.320 So he was entered also in the Suleymaniye Mosque in a mausoleum adjacent to that of Harem.

00:39:49.540 Their only surviving son, Selim, became the next sultan.

00:39:53.180 He was, as per every story we've ever done, where a woman is amazing and smart and clever and fights tooth and nail for her son, 0.84

00:40:00.700 he was pretty useless, and he was known as Selim the Drunkard. 0.52

00:40:04.840 But the real power behind the throne in his era was actually in the hands of his sister, Mirama, 0.85

00:40:10.360 who is truly the heir of harem psychologically and mirama's daughter aisha humasha and then

00:40:17.160 so 150 year period of time beginning with harem moving to the new palace like starting with that

00:40:23.960 and then 150 years from then on is considered to be the reign of women as harem's heavy involvement 0.84

00:40:29.720 in politics and the changes she implemented paved the way for other influential women to follow 0.90

00:40:33.880 after her during this period women close to the reigning sultan mothers wives daughters and 0.97

00:40:39.020 concerts exercised exceptional power often determining domestic policy negotiating with

00:40:44.020 foreign governments and acting in the role of regent as well as leaving architectural monuments 0.99

00:40:48.340 to their success as such the new palace harem that she created did continue on but after her 0.91

00:40:55.400 death it was overseen by the queen mother so no other reigning couple were allowed to come to 0.54

00:41:00.200 power after her and soleiman like there's never another person in her exact role again although 0.98

00:41:07.360 other women did take on political powers i just described so some of the precedents that harem 0.54

00:41:14.500 and suleiman set that continued on included a more peaceable system of identifying the next

00:41:19.500 sultan rather than the brothers all killing each other her diplomatic work helped modernize the

00:41:23.920 empire where treaty negotiations became as challenging and significant as victory in battle

00:41:28.760 and domestic will occupied as much of the government's attention as conquest

00:41:33.620 bolstered by the reforms harem and seliman introduced the ottoman empire would sustain

00:41:37.940 itself for another 350 years their daughter mirama would become the greatest of ottoman

00:41:43.400 princess philanthropists following her mother's example mirama amassed a huge fortune from her

00:41:48.680 dowry and inheritance which she used in the construction of buildings and the endowment 0.64

00:41:52.320 of charitable foundations she maintained her influence through many reigns because like 0.80

00:41:57.200 to no one's surprise salim the drunkard did not last super long when she died in 1575 her nephew

00:42:04.340 murad the third had her buried next to sulaiman an honor not even granted to harem harem sultan

00:42:11.600 is a subject of many artistic works um the first of these came just three years after her death

00:42:16.840 when french author gabrielle bunin wrote a tragedy tell the last sultan and this was the first time

00:42:22.240 the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France. She has inspired paintings, musical works,

00:42:27.640 operas, a ballet, plays, and several novels written mainly in Russian and Ukrainian,

00:42:32.300 but also in English, French, German, and Polish. In 1999, the town of Rohitin, Ukraine erected a

00:42:38.060 bronze statue of her. In 2007, Muslims in Mariupol, Ukraine opened a mosque to honor harem.

00:42:44.920 And then of course, she was portrayed in TV miniseries. So first there was a 2003 Turkish

00:42:50.260 miniseries called harem sultan and then she was a primary character in magnificent century which

00:42:56.000 again you can find on youtube and is so good in 2019 mention of the russian origin of harem sultan

00:43:03.080 was removed from the visitor panel near her tomb at the sulemanye mosque in istanbul at the request

00:43:08.080 of the ukrainian embassy in turkey the historic areas of istanbul were named a unesco world

00:43:13.480 heritage site in 1985 i feel like so many the season is like accidentally like the history of

00:43:19.200 women and UNESCO World Heritage Sites. So the areas that are considered part of the historic

00:43:24.400 areas of Istanbul World Heritage Site include the New Palace, the Suleymaniye Mosque complex,

00:43:29.560 and the Shezade Mosque complex built from Mehmed. And the Haseki Sultan complex, the first foundation

00:43:35.240 she commissioned, is still in Istanbul, as are most of the other buildings she commissioned

00:43:38.920 throughout the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the hospital that was constructed by Harem, Haseki

00:43:43.720 hospital still offers its services to sick people today and now time for some scoring so

00:43:50.420 well first of all the lady jane seymour memorial award for outstanding supporting performance

00:43:55.560 past recipients lady jane seymour obviously thomas keys tonga pedro and i'm gonna give this to

00:44:02.220 Suleyman because he loved Harem so much he respected her he saw all that she's capable of

00:44:13.800 and he relied on her like because of their relationship they were able to keep on top of

00:44:19.380 domestic affairs as well as while he was on military campaigns like he trusted her and he

00:44:23.600 loved her so much and I'm gonna give him this award because she was able to achieve everything

00:44:29.160 she did because of his unending support and this is the outstanding supporting performance it's not

00:44:35.560 just like best boyfriend award it's like someone who supports the main character of one of these

00:44:39.640 podcast episodes and Suleiman supported her in everything she did like even though people are

00:44:43.880 like oh is she an evil witch oh did she murder these people he's just like I don't care like

00:44:47.960 she's great and I love her and I love I love their love so the Fredigan memorial scandalousness

00:44:55.340 scale i feel like this might be major scandalousness there's two angles to this the first 0.88

00:45:02.600 angle is like with melanzine the behavior that harem like what she did was scandalousness 0.99

00:45:09.600 to the people at the time because it was so opposite of what the protocol usually was in 1.00

00:45:15.280 the sense of like she was monogamous with him they got married like that usually that stuff

00:45:21.340 is not considered scandalousness but in this instance it is because that was scandalous to

00:45:26.100 people at the time but then also the scandalousness of like did she kill these people like 0.98

00:45:31.400 she was like how did did she do a sexy dance to get his attention like the whole way that people

00:45:38.680 thought she was an evil witch and stuff like i feel like there's a large high amount of 0.93

00:45:42.860 scandalousness i'm gonna give her i hope this isn't controversial but i'm gonna give her an

00:45:47.040 eight for scandalousness i'm not giving her top marks because we don't know if she was involved

00:45:53.720 like and the two murders like it's arm's length it's like did she convince him to then order the

00:46:00.000 murder of this person that was then done by someone else like she's not like her hands aren't 0.58

00:46:04.180 dirty in the scandalousness which could just be because she was so good at it she kept herself

00:46:07.680 uninvolved but that's i would say scheminess and this is where i feel like she's gonna get

00:46:11.560 high marks so first of all the fact that she like was thrust into the situation in the harem

00:46:17.960 but again scheminess being like a quality that i support and value like the fact that she saw what

00:46:27.360 was going on in the harem realized like okay the fact that she like became fluent in turkish the

00:46:32.520 fact that she figured out all this like downton abbey level etiquette stuff but also the fact that

00:46:37.440 she showed her aptitude to the point that she got the extra training the fact that she somehow

00:46:43.160 either through her own scheminess or through the scheminess that got her to get somebody

00:46:48.940 like they got her the attention of someone who would be her patron like that she was brought to

00:46:53.040 the attention of Suleiman and then the fact that she then went on to do all this like political

00:46:59.520 government stuff like the fact that she stayed head above water in this situation where everyone

00:47:05.000 was out to get her really like and a lot of that was like yeah Suleiman supported her but she was

00:47:10.060 able to stay on top of that and make him not doubt her to make him continue supporting her like I

00:47:16.240 am giving her a 10 I'm giving her a 10 for scheminess because I just feel like

00:47:22.880 in terms of like intelligence cleverness like staying like it seems like

00:47:29.600 going through the narrative it's like well things were pretty easy for her like Suleiman loved her

00:47:34.340 and so she got this job and here we go but it's like no but like she worked for like once she was

00:47:38.500 in that situation which like first of all it took scheminess to get there and then it took scheminess

00:47:42.380 to stay in that position and to do all the stuff she was doing like the fact it's funny to call it

00:47:48.160 scheminess but like the way that they were make like modernizing this empire the way that they

00:47:52.040 were changing protocols like it's intelligence it's resilience and i think good for her

00:47:58.460 significance I think is going to be also another high score because just in terms of like how she 0.76

00:48:04.780 paved the way for this 150 year period of like other women taking on similar roles the way that

00:48:09.600 she became a role model to people inspiring other people to to give back as well but also the

00:48:14.300 significance of the work that she did like making these buildings that would help women in a place

00:48:20.580 where they maybe didn't have access to a school or fresh water or a hospital or a mosque they could 0.58

00:48:24.760 go to like the ripple effect of that like how many like literally how many lives did she improve 0.91

00:48:30.420 and or save by making these philanthropic foundations like just offering water to people

00:48:37.580 offering people a place for education like the ripple effect of that of like people who went

00:48:43.700 there and like maybe got more education than they would have and then what did those people do and

00:48:47.580 then i feel like her significance is 10 as well and then we get to the sexism bonus and so this 0.69

00:48:55.260 is it's tricky the sexism bonus is i need to wrap my head around this because she was captured and

00:49:05.200 sold into slavery in a very gendered way where she was you know displayed nude at the slave market

00:49:12.700 for inspection of her hymen and stuff and then she sold into effectively sexual slavery i say 1.00

00:49:20.920 effectively because like melanzine was like put into sexual slavery like right away would have 1.00

00:49:26.060 been assaulted harem was trained for four years to become a concubine and it just so happened 0.98

00:49:31.860 that she and silemon ended up hitting it off but like that doesn't make what happened to her 0.85

00:49:36.500 not a horrible sexist thing that happened and then when she gained more power people like she

00:49:45.380 still faced sexism in the sense of like yes she still had power that was not taken away from her

00:49:49.220 because Suleiman supported her and that's why he gets the award but people were just like well how 1.00

00:49:53.840 could a woman be smart how could a woman be significant unless she was an evil sexy witch 0.99

00:49:59.820 at the same point the sexism bonus is like how much did the bullshit patriarchy get in the way 1.00

00:50:05.020 of her fulfilling her um potential as a powerful person and i don't want to downplay the fact that 1.00

00:50:15.620 like slavery of it all but for most of her life like the sexism didn't get in her way because she 0.96

00:50:27.340 found a way to play within that system which was a sexist system i'm gonna say controversially

00:50:33.480 i'm going to give her an eight for sexism so what does this add up to i think it's going to be

00:50:39.740 a pretty mega score 36 30 goddamn six let me just check our scale here that is 0.5 above 0.92

00:50:51.360 malinzine um so the top the top score is here fredegand has a 38 queen margot 37.5 harem 0.90

00:50:58.780 Soltan 36, Madeline Zine 35.5. And it goes down from there, but that's like a top score. That's

00:51:06.200 in the top five. I, I feel okay about that. I was just considering if I should rescore her on any of

00:51:13.520 the categories. Cause I was like, but part of the way that this scale works is it's just, it's a gut

00:51:19.580 feeling. And I am at peace with where she landed because I think she was phenomenal. I think she

00:51:27.500 was great i think where fredigand and queen margot are slightly above her on the scale which

00:51:34.980 is not a scale of like who is the best or like who is the coolest this is who is the most

00:51:38.060 scandalousness fredigand and queen margot had more literal scandal that we know about like

00:51:44.020 queen margot had affairs with people fredigand murdered people like harem sultan it's like there

00:51:49.820 was rumors that maybe she did but we don't know for sure that she did so she's making up a lot 1.00

00:51:54.680 of her points on um significance she's making her points on scheminess sexism like her

00:52:00.540 scandalousness is high but it's not I think this this is a good I mean obviously they're all good

00:52:07.000 scores I make the scores but I think this is a suitable score for her because sort of in that

00:52:13.260 Anne Boleyn sort of way like she's got this bad reputation to some people apparently for like

00:52:18.320 being like evil and schemey and whatever and like yeah she was schemey but I don't think 0.89

00:52:22.320 there's not direct a specific skandalicious in this thing you can point towards that she did

00:52:28.180 other than the fact that like to the people of the time it was skandaliciousness that she was like

00:52:31.720 in a monogamous relationship etc so yeah her i'm still 10 third highest score on the entire scale

00:52:40.020 pretty exciting the season is like this international season these scores are real

00:52:45.640 high yeah so that was this family size sharing size portion of vulgar history i'm gonna go and

00:52:53.480 have the biggest drink of water um but yeah reminders of a couple things so if you go to

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00:55:25.660 people I've talked about are who I did like Henry VIII, I did Charles Dickens, various people like

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Vulgar History - April 05, 2022

International, part 6： Hürrem Sultan, Sultana Era (pt 2⧸2)

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