[494] Postel, i. 31, speaks of the mother of Mustapha as having superior authority about 1537, though residing much at Magnesia; and he does not speak of Roxelana. But Ludovisi, 29, shows that Roxelana was in 1534 the wife of Suleiman, and that the mother of Mustapha then resided with her son at Magnesia. For the decisive quarrel between Roxelana and the mother of Mustapha, see Navagero, 75. [495] Navagero, 79. [496] Described above, pp. 93-95. [497] Navagero, 76-77. [498] The unfortunate Jehangir also was thought to have come to his death from shock at the death of Mustapha and fear of a similar fate for himself. See Busbecq, _Life and Letters_, i. 178; Navagero, 77. But see Alberi, _Anonimo_ of 1553, 216, for another and more credible account. [499] Hammer, _Geschichte_, iii. 425. [500] See above, pp. 78, 120. [501] Busbecq, _Life and Letters_, i. 331; Halil Ganem, i. 199. [502] Spandugino, 185. A generation earlier still La Broquière, 186, said: “No one speaks to them [the pashas] unless he brings them a present, as well as one for each of the slaves who guard their gate.” [503] Spandugino, 145, relates how in his time the peasants were eaten, as it were, all the year by tithes, compulsory presents, land-tax, and extortion. The earlier sixteenth-century writers seem not to have observed that the sultan’s subjects were especially miserable. Morosini (1585), 272, remarks vigorously upon the tyranny and oppression which were causing depopulation and destroying the incentive of the farm-dwellers to produce more than a bare sustenance. Zane (1595), 395, 415, writes in a similar vein. Gerlach, 52 (quoted in Zinkeisen, iii. 361), found those who lived at a distance from Constantinople in a wretched state of oppression. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 982), writing about 1603, speaks of the desolate condition of the empire, especially in those regions through which the army was accustomed to pass. In Ricaut’s time (pp. 124, 145, 323) agricultural decline, accompanied by misery and depopulation, was apparent. [504] Hammer, _Geschichte_, iii. 438. [505] D’Ohsson, i. 268; Heidborn, 112, note 11. Heidborn, 106-121, treats fully the constitutional position of the sultan. [506] Hammer, _Geschichte_, ii. 226. [507] D’Ohsson, iv. 482 ff. [508] Hammer, _Geschichte_, ii. 1-3. [509] _Ibid._ i. 557, iii. 159, etc. [510] Hammer, _Staatsverfassung_, 29. This use of the word _Urf_ in Turkish is not the same as that of its Arabic original (see Redhouse, 1294; Youssouf Fehmi, 237). Heidborn, 37 ff., discusses the sources of Ottoman law, giving an especially thorough and excellent treatment to the Sacred Law. [511] Macdonald, 71; D’Ohsson, i. 5 ff. [512] Macdonald, 94, 115; Hammer, _Staatsverfassung_, 4; D’Ohsson, i. 11 ff. [513] Hammer, _Staatsverfassung_, 9. [514] D’Ohsson, 21.