Suleyman the Magnificent's bid for world domination

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Henry VIII lauded it over England. Francis I dominated France. Charles V was the main man in Central Europe. Yet arguably, none was as powerful as the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a true heavyweight of the 16th century.

Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizen, Christopher de Beleg discusses a man who had designs on becoming world emperor, only to be hamstrung by bloody infighting among his own family. So Christopher, your new book, The Golden Throne, focuses on the fortunes of one of the most extraordinary individuals of the 16th century, and that is the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. I wonder if you could start by introducing Suleiman to our listeners, what makes him such a fascinating figure? He's another way of looking at a period of history that we in this country know extremely well through Henry VIII, and we think we've sort of got it covered because we know what Henry VIII was getting up to in his bedroom, and we also know that he was stripping the monasteries and declaring autonomy from Rome. But Henry didn't really fight very much, and he sat around and philosophized and thought about the bedroom a lot.

There was a great deal going on in Europe and beyond at the same time, and he had several extremely important and influential contemporaries. We know a little bit about Charles V, because they were related through marriage through Catherine of Aragon. We know a little bit about Francis I, the French king, because of the field of the cloth of gold. The member of the Quartet, who is arguably the most important of the lot, we know the least about in this country, and that is Suleiman the Magnificent, and he was a direct contemporary of Henry VIII. He outlived him by some years.

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