Gulbadan Begum: princess, explorer, author

Before Rome's republic and the age of emperors, there were kings… or so the story goes. Beginning with Romulus, and ending with Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, these rulers loomed large in the Roman imagination – but is their narrative fact or fiction? In this episode, Emily Briffett ...  Show more

King Philip Augustus of France was the Plantagenets’ ultimate enemy. A ruler with an iron fist and sharp political instincts, he consistently exploited the squabbles of the English dynasty, all while transforming France into a dominant power in Western Europe. Speaking to Emily B ...  Show more

Ruby Lal’s new biography of the Mughal Princess Gulbadan brings to life the princess’s remarkable seven-year pilgrimage, from her home in the harem of her nephew Emperor Akbar in India to the holy city of Mecca. Surviving shipwrecks and expulsion orders from the Ottoman Sultan ...

In the British Library, there is a manuscript copy of the memoir of Princess Gulbadan, the only surviving female-authored memoir from the Mughal Empire. In it, Gulbadan tells her extraordinary story: from growing up in a multi-cultural society, via life in a walled harem, to ...

What was life like for women in the Ottoman Empire? Was the Sultanate of Women the golden era? What was the role of the Harem? Listen as William and Anita are joined by Bettany Hughes to discuss the role of women in the Ottoman Empire. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire Twitter: @ ...  Show more

Nur Jahan was born on a roadside as her well-to-do parents fled from Safavid Persia for the tolerant court of the Mughal emperor. Her first marriage was respectable although unremarkable, but then her husband died and she entered the imperial harem. From here, she rose through th ...  Show more