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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

Ottoman royal siblings locked up in the Kafes. Imgur

34. The Ottomans’ “Humane” Alternative to Massacring Their Brothers

Over time, a reaction set in against the Ottoman sultans’ tradition of fratricide. So a new tradition was developed to take its place: instead of new Sultans outright murdering their siblings upon ascending the throne, they simply locked them up.

The Kafes in the Topkapi Palace, where Ottoman sultans locked up their brothers. Wikimedia

Thus was born the system of the Ottoman Kafes, or “Cage”, whereby Sultans set up a secluded part of their royal Harem as a detention center for their brothers. There, potential rivals were kept under house arrest, under surveillance by palace guards and isolated from the outside world to prevent intrigues and plots. It was a harsh existence that drove some of the locked-up princess to madness. However, compared to death, it was still a relatively more humane alternative.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.