Historyland Ferdaws

  Mustafa III was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1757 to 1774.  He was a son of Sultan Ahmed III (1703–30), and his consort Mihrişah Kadın.  He was succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid I (1774–89). Mustafa was born at the Edirne Palace on  28 January 1717 .  His father was Sultan Ahmed III, and his mother was Mihrişah Kadın.He had a full brother named, Şehzade Süleyman.  In 1720, a large fifteen day circumcision ceremony took place for Mustafa, and his brothers, princes Süleyman, Mehmed, and Bayezid.  In 1730, after the Patrona Halil revolt, led to the deposition of his father Sultan Ahmed III,[4] and the succession of his cousin Sultan Mahmud I, Mustafa, his father,  and brothers were all locked up in the Topkapı Palace.  In 1756, after the death of his elder half-brother Mehmed, he became heir to the throne. Soon after his accession to the throne, Mustafa demonstrated a special care for justice.  He took a number of measures to increase prosperity in Istanbul.  He regulated co

  In the wake of such grisly events, the Boleyn name seemed to offer a moral lesson in what could happen to those whose ambition enticed them to rise ‘above their station’. History has relegated the story of the Boleyns to a soap opera – and Anne’s father, Thomas, is often the villain of the piece, widely derided as a callous, grasping courtier who would stop at nothing to advance his own interests. Such accusations were first levelled at Thomas during his own lifetime, put about by supporters of  Henry VIII ’s first queen,  Catherine of Aragon , who despised Anne. And those accusations stuck. One modern historian famously remarked that, on his way to an earl dom, Thomas “slipped, or appears to have slipped, two daughters in succession into the king’s bed”. (The other daughter was Anne’s sister,  Mary Boleyn , who was  Henry VIII’s mistress , and may have borne him two children). But of all the barbs directed at Thomas, perhaps the most damaging is the one that he blithely accepted the

  Every country has its legends and fairytales, and Portugal is no exception. One of the most well-known Portuguese tales is a love story about King Pedro of Portugal and Inês de Castro. Their relationship did not end as they would have wanted, with Inês being killed by royal minions, but in this case, what life took apart, death put back together. Here is the story of how King Pedro’s and Inês’s tombs were made. It all started in the 14th century when  Prince Pedro  (1320-1367), who was at the time the rightful heir to the throne, met Constança from the Castela Kingdom, whom he was expected to marry in an arranged marriage. Pedro, however, fell in love with one of Contança’s maids; her name was  Inês de Castro ) and she reciprocated the prince’s love. Inês was the natural daughter of  Pedro Fernández de Castro , Lord of Lemos and Sarria, and his noble Portuguese mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares.   She was also well connected to the Castilian royal family Pedro and Inês had a sec

  Brother to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII, George Boleyn is best-known for his arrest and subsequent execution for treason. But how close was he to his royal sister, really?  George Boleyn remains elusive through the distant mirror of the centuries, often pushed to the sidelines. For 500 years he has lived in the shadows of his more glamorous sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn – and, until his arrest for treason in the spring of 1536, he did exactly the same in his own lifetime. As a young man, George sought to carve out a career as a diplomat – with help, no doubt, from his father, Thomas Boleyn – but struggled to be taken seriously. Every advance he made in his career was attributed, not to his own merits, but the influence of his royal sister, Anne Boleyn. In fact, George was an intelligent, literate and artistic young man with a flair for languages and a charismatic personality. He loved jousting and hawking, and cultivated a reputation for being a skilled sport

  Anne Boleyn’s final battle: Henry VIII’s final ‘kindness’ Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, famously lost her head at her husband’s behest. Tracy Borman, the presenter of a new TV series on Anne’s fall from grace, delves into the queen’s dramatic final days At nine o’clock on 15 May 1536, the Great Hall at the Tower of London – part of the now lost Tudor royal palace – was thronging with some 2,000 courtiers, clerics and lawyers, all gathered to witness the trial of the century. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s notorious second wife, stood accused of adultery, incest and treason. It was the first time in history that a queen of England had been put on trial – and the proceedings resulted in her bloody end. Her arrest, 13 days before, had sent shockwaves across the kingdom and abroad. She had been queen for a little under three years, during which time she had become increasingly unpopular with the people of England and made dangerous enemies at court: none more so than her husband. And