Damien Grant

Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Kayser-i Rum, The Lord of the Two Lands and the Two Seas, conquered Constantinople and most of the Balkans.

Still. He had a problem. A surfeit of heirs.

Forseeing trouble and mindful of the ruinous dynastic squabbles of his grandfather, he issued an edict called the Conqueror’s Law of Governance.

It included the prescient statement; ‘‘Any of my sons ascend the throne, it acceptable for him to kill his brothers for the common benefit of the people.’’

Sadly, his successor failed to follow this excellent advice and proceeded to fight a civil war with his younger brother.

Subsequent Sultans were more scrupulous with enforcing this self-evidently wise prescription with Mehmed III taking the precaution of strangling 19 of his siblings upon his ascension to the throne in 1595.

Unfortunately the practice was disestablished after his reign.

Troublesome dynastic siblings are a problem as old as recorded history.

Cain, as you may recall, slew his younger brother Abel. Remus met a similar fate at the hands of his brother, Romulus, the fabled founder of Rome.

And let us not forget Jacob, who usurped Esau’s birth right and laid the foundation of the Tribes of Israel.

Imperial deaths began almost as soon as the Romans dispensed with their republic and reached its apogee with the historically maligned Agrippina, who is accused of poisoning her husband Claudius in order that her son, Nero,