princess of light per tradition the prince was sent to the provinces to learn how to govern and he took nurbano with him on his travels he remained faithful to her and they had five children together four daughters but only one son murad when his father died salem returned to istanbul to claim the throne as sultan he was far from magnificent he was an alcoholic and preferred to leave the running of the government to his grand vizier with a good deal of influence from norbanu other nobles attempted to claim the throne from the weak sultan but none succeeded and when the rebels were captured and put to death their families were massacred along with them to prevent further challenges salim made clear his love and devotion to norbhanu publicly legally marrying her and proclaiming their son murad his heir but child mortality was high and only having one heir to the throne was very risky if anything should happen to murad the empire would be plunged into chaos in order to add some insurance to secure the osman dynasty salem reluctantly went to bed with other concubines and produced a handful of spare sons but these children presented a threat to norwanu's and everyone knew that in the likely event that they weren't needed as sultan they would be strangled with a bowstring after eight years on the throne salim suffered a rather unfortunate accident drunk and stumbling about in the bathhouse he slipped and fell hitting his head on the marble floor and dying instantly the death of a sultan was a crisis usually his sons their mothers and their supporters would prepare to fight to the death over the throne norbanu's son NUMBER_TOKEN year old prince murad was away in the provinces but the fact that the sultan had died inside the harem the space in which norbanu had absolute control gave her an advantage the wily consort ordered everyone who knew of her husband's demise to keep their mouths shut on pain of death she stored salim's body in the ice house and called morad to return to the capitol post haste once the prince arrived he went straight to his mother and although he was loath to do so she insisted that he carry out his duty and have his five young half-brothers killed it was a night of terror in the harem the next morning the people saw the first sign that they had a new sultan five coffins being carried out of the palace the prince's five mothers were devastated and one of them committed suicide the women of the imperial harem lived in the lap of luxury and privilege they had their every physical need cared for but they often lived under incredible stress and mental health was rarely considered at the time however things may appear from the outside we all have struggles large and small and things that get in the way of our happiness one of the many privileges of living today is the vast improvement in mental health professional therapy has helped me and my loved ones immensely but it can be prohibitively expensive and inconvenient to travel to a counselor's office for sessions that's why there's better help for convenient affordable professional therapy online go to URL_TOKEN holiday and answer a few questions about yourself and your concerns and get matched with one of over NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN licensed
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN professional therapy has helped me and my loved ones immensely but it can be prohibitively expensive and inconvenient to travel to a counselor's office for sessions that's why there's better help for convenient affordable professional therapy online go to URL_TOKEN holiday and answer a few questions about yourself and your concerns and get matched with one of over NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN licensed END_SPONSOR_TOKEN