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Prince Cem sent two envoys, Frenk Suleyman and Dogan, to the Knights of Rhodes. On July 10, 1482, the negotiations of the envoys who contacted the knights were positive. The knights, seeing the great benefits of obtaining such a political asset, issued a permit for Prince Cem to enter the island.
Frenk Suleyman and Don Alvaro de Zuniga of the Knights of Rhodes set out with three ships to fetch Prince Cem. When they arrived at the area where Prince Cem was to be picked up, Frenk Suleyman told Prince Cem that the Knights of Rhodes had secret intentions. Although Prince Cem hesitated, his doubts were dispelled by the saying, "Infidels are steadfast in their promises."
On July 20, Prince Cem and his entourage set sail for the island of Rhodes. On July 26, 1482, Prince Cem landed on the island of Rhodes, held by the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John. He was received like a sovereign by the Rhodians, especially by the Grand Master of the Order, Pierre d'Aubusson, and carpets were laid on the roads he passed.
He went to the castle allocated to him on horseback, side by side with the head of the knights, amidst the crowds that had spilled into the streets. In reality, however, Prince Cem was nothing more than a captive to be used for the benefit of the Knights of Saint John, the implacable enemies of the Turks.
The Grand Master of Saint John, Pierre d'Aubusson, sent letters to almost all European rulers, especially Pope Sixtus IV, stating that it might be possible for Christians to expel the Turks from Europe immediately. In a letter he personally sent to the Pope, the Grand Master Pierre even stated, "Now it is in the hands of the Christians to destroy the hateful race of Muhammad. If soldiers are given to Prince Cem, his supporters will gain strength. His cowardly brother will be extremely fearful and apprehensive of this."
Prince Cem, deceived by these courtesies and displays, made promises during a dinner he attended with the knights, such as the return of the islands taken from the Rhodians when he seized the Sultanate, the granting of freedom to their ships in Turkish ports, and their exemption from customs and salt taxes.
Sultan Bayezid II, on the other hand, was quite worried about Prince Cem's passage to Rhodes. Gedik Ahmed Pasha and Mesih Pasha, who had besieged Rhodes during Fatih's time, were sent to Rhodes to speak with the knights and reach an agreement.
Grand Master d'Aubusson, with these requests and the Pope's permission, sent an envoy to Sultan Bayezid. Sultan Bayezid agreed to pay forty-five thousand ducats to Rhodes every year at the beginning of August, provided that the knights in Rhodes kept Prince Cem in custody. Nevertheless, considering the possibility of Sultan Bayezid besieging and pressuring Rhodes, the knights, with the permission of the King of France, found it appropriate to move Prince Cem to one of their fortresses on the Mediterranean coast.
Prince Cem's aim in this matter was to be able to cross to Rumelia via Europe. On Sept. 1, 1482, Prince Cem left the island of Rhodes with his entourage of thirty-two people. In essence, the purpose of this transfer was for the Knights of Rhodes to obtain an important means of extracting money from the Ottomans and to gain a political weapon against them. However, Prince Cem, hoping to cross into the Ottoman territories in Rumelia via Hungary, was once again deceived.
He was first taken to Kos, then to Villefranche on the southern coast of France via Messina on Oct. 16, 1482, and subsequently to Nice, a city belonging to the Duchy of Savoy. Prince Cem stayed in this city, which he greatly admired, for a long time. He even described this city with the verse: "This city of Nice is a wondrous city, whoever stays by it finds delight."
Eventually, realizing that the knights were using him politically, Prince Cem wrote a letter to his brother, Sultan Bayezid, asking not to be left in the hands of infidels. During his stay in the Duchy of Savoy, Prince Cem expressed his renunciation of the Ottoman throne with the following verses: "The Sultanate is no different than this, O Prince Cem, gladden your heart, drink wine, this is the assembly of the beloved (...) A person is left with one pleasure in the world, a good name; if they say the Sultanate remains, it is a lie (...) Go, O Bayezid, and continue your reign; if they say the Sultanate remains, it is a lie." During his residence in Nice, Prince Cem secretly sent Hatipzade Nasuh Çelebi to King Louis XI of France to secure his assistance.
However, this attempt was unsuccessful as the knights captured Hatipzade and imprisoned him in a village near Nice. Meanwhile, due to the outbreak of plague in Nice, the knights, finding it unsuitable to stay in this city, moved to Chambery, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy. From there, Prince Cem sent two of his close men, Mustafa and Ahmed Bey, to the King of Hungary in Frankish attire. Prince Cem met with Duke Charles I of Savoy, who was only fifteen years old at the time, in Chambery.
Duke Charles, deeply moved by this adventure he had heard firsthand, stated that he would do everything in his power. However, upon learning of this, the knights removed Prince Cem from this city as well.
On July 20, 1483, they imprisoned Prince Cem in the Château de Pouet.
Meanwhile, they had also captured and killed the two men Prince Cem had sent to the King of Hungary. It was around this time that Sultan Bayezid II's extraordinary envoy, Huseyin Bey, who had been sent to meet with King Louis of France, made attempts to meet with Cem through the knights but was unsuccessful. However, he managed to deliver a letter from Sultan Bayezid to Prince Cem.
In his letter, Sultan Bayezid stated that if Cem escaped from the hands of the knights, his previous offer would still stand. From there, the Sultan's envoy went to the King of France and stated that if they kept Cem in their custody, a large sum of money and valuable gifts from the Imperial Treasury in Istanbul, considered sacred by Christians, would be given to them.
However, Louis XI, a staunch Catholic, refused to accept anything from Muslims and avoided meeting with the envoy. Upon the death of King Louis XI on Aug. 30, 1483, the Knights of Rhodes, fearing potential unrest in France and they transferred Prince Cem to the Château de Sassenage, sending his entourage of 29 people back to the island of Rhodes.
Meanwhile, Sultan Bayezid, considering all possibilities, was taking certain precautions in Edirne. He had Gedik Ahmed Pasha, a famous commander known to be a supporter of Prince Cem, assassinated during a banquet in Edirne on Dec. 18, 1483. Ishak Pasha, Gedik Ahmed Pasha's father-in-law, was dismissed from the position of Grand Vizier and retired with the sanjak (district) of Thessaloniki.
Subsequently, with a decree he sent to İskender Pasha, the Governor of Istanbul, he ordered the execution of Prince Cem's son, Oguz Han. Karamanoglu Kasım Bey, who had instigated Prince Cem in these matters, also met the same fate. Upon receiving news of his son's death, Prince Cem began to devise a plan to escape from the castle where he was staying.
In early 1484, Prince Cem was at the Château de Bourg-Neuf. During this time, his close associates Sofu Huseyin, Ayas, Celal, Sinan, and Sofu Sadi Bey plotted to kill the guards of the chateau where Prince Cem was held and abduct him during a morning walk.
However, when one of Prince Cem's close circle revealed the plan, the attempt was exposed. Consequently, Prince Cem was transferred to a newly built seven-story tower within the Château de Bourg-Neuf called the Tour de Zizim (Cem's Tower) and placed under strict confinement.
Here, Prince Cem tried to overcome his loneliness by talking to a parrot and teaching a monkey to play chess. It is even narrated that this white parrot, which Prince Cem had taught to say "Allahu yensuru Sultan Cem" (May Allah help Sultan Cem) every day, began to say "Allahu yerhamu Sultan Cem" (May Allah have mercy on Sultan Cem) in a sad and cheerless manner after his death.
After Prince Cem's passing, this white parrot was brought to Istanbul by Haydar Çelebi, dyed black to resemble a raven, and dressed in mourning attire. It was then that the parrot clearly and eloquently said several times, "The judgment belongs to Allah; what is in the hand of His servant? May our sultan's life be long."
On the other hand, the new Pope Innocent VIII intended to organize a Crusade under the leadership of Prince Cem. The Knights of Rhodes, for their own benefit, were moving the captive Prince from castle to castle to keep him in their possession. More than the money they received from the Ottoman Empire, the Knights of Rhodes were also securing a flow of funds from Prince Cem's family by forging letters in his name.
Furthermore, Prince Cem was the guarantee of Rhodes' security. In case of a potential siege, they held the Prince captive as a strong trump card against a possible Crusader threat. However, facing intense pressure from both Sultan Bayezid and the European states, the knights, realizing the difficulty of holding onto Prince Cem, agreed to hand him over to the Pope with the consent of the King of France. Nevertheless, Prince Cem, who had set out from Bourg-Neuf on Oct. 11, 1488, and reached Marseille and then Toulon, was intended to be detained at the request of King Charles VIII of France.
The King of France took this action upon the promises of the extraordinarily authorized Ottoman envoy who had arrived in France. However, Prince Cem himself was hastily put on a ship from Toulon and smuggled out of France. From there, he was transferred to Rome. In Rome, Prince Cem was received with a magnificent ceremony by all the Roman dignitaries and military units, except for the Pope and the cardinals.
Accompanied by the Pope's son, Francesco Cybo, he rode through the streets of Rome in a splendid procession and arrived at the quarter allocated to him in the Vatican. The next day, March 14, 1489, Sultan Cem was officially received by Pope Innocent VIII with ceremonies befitting great rulers. He was greeted standing by the Pope and the cardinals.
The Master of Ceremonies asked Prince Cem, who had never bowed before anyone other than his father, to at least remove his turban and bow before the Pope, whose feet even emperors kissed. Seeing this as humiliation, Fatih's son stated firmly that he had never bowed before anyone other than his father and would not do so from then on.
Despite all the insistence, Prince Cem, saying that he would rather die than do so, did not consent to remove his turban or kneel, and instead went directly to the Pope and embraced him and the cardinals. When Prince Cem narrated his experiences in this assembly, the Pope, who wanted to organize a Crusade, pretended to share his sorrow and tried to win Prince Cem over to his side. However, sensing this, Prince Cem declared that he would never accept such a situation and would not betray the "Din-i Mübin Islam" (Clear Religion of Islam). Thereupon, the Pope uttered the Latin sentence, "Go then, lie down in a corner like a dog." Knowing Latin, Prince Cem retorted sharply, "If I am no worse than the dog that came to you, what more could have happened?"
Prince Cem spent a difficult period in the Castel Sant'Angelo during the reign of Pope Innocent VIII. Upon his death in 1492, he began to live a freer life during the time of the new Pope Alexander Borgia. He began to go horseback riding outside the city of Rome and attend gatherings and invitations as a guest of the nobility. It is narrated that noblewomen fluttered around the Prince to be able to meet or speak with him. It is even said that the Pope's daughter Lucrezia Borgia, famous for her beauty, danced almost naked before Cem. Furthermore, Prince Cem had become famous for his charity to the poor people during his travels in Rome.
This situation was misinterpreted by the Christians, leading to the belief that the Prince was close to the Christian faith. Encouraged by this, Pope Alexander Borgia offered Prince Cem Christianity during a meeting. Cem Sultan responded decisively to this offer: "Even if they gave me the Ottoman Sultanate, nay, the rule of the entire world, I would not abandon my religion!"
Around this time, Europe was once again in motion upon the death of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Venetian territories were being trampled upon by Ottoman raiders. The Republic of Venice, to secure itself, had begun to organize a new Crusade and desired Prince Cem to be brought to the forefront in this endeavor. Venice was striving to form a strong alliance against the Ottomans by resolving the conflict between France and Naples and also bringing the Mamluks to their side. In response to these activities of Venice, King Charles VIII of France marched towards Italy with a large army in September 1494.
France, after obtaining the Kingdom of Naples, was planning to take Cem with them and organize a Crusade toward Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the Turkish envoy bringing the annual payment to the Pope and the papal legate returning from Istanbul were attacked by a castle commander in Italy, and their documents were confiscated. These documents, which included a letter from Sultan Bayezid to the Pope, fell into the hands of the King of France. In his letter, Bayezid promised to pay two hundred thousand gold coins in exchange for Cem's assassination by the Pope.
Charles, who seized the letter, entered Rome via France in January 1495 and demanded Cem's delivery from the Pope. The Pope agreed on the condition that the King would return him to the papacy after his return from France. Prince Cem, who met with King Charles in the Castel Sant'Angelo, was handed over to the King by the Pope in the Vatican on Jan.26.
On Jan. 28, he left Rome with the French army, participated in the French campaign in Naples, and witnessed the capture of many fortresses. While the resistance of the Kingdom of Naples was being broken and the Castel San Germano was captured, symptoms of illness began to appear in Prince Cem. After a while, the illness progressed, and his face, eyes, and neck swelled.
No longer able to ride a horse, he was transported by litter. Feeling that his end was near, he said to his loyal men who were with him: "Strive to take my body to Darusselam (Abode of Peace, i.e., Istanbul). By no means leave me in Frengistan (Land of the Franks, i.e., Europe), lest our enemies act in my name and attack the lands of Islam." Indeed, from the moment Cem Sultan understood that a Crusade was being planned against the Ottoman lands using him as a pretext, he frequently supplicated to Allah: "O my God! If these evil infidels, enemies of religion, intend to campaign against the people of Islam because of me, do not let me live to see those days. Take my soul swiftly. Let it fly to the abode of mercy."
Despite all the efforts and care of King Charles, who had entered Naples, Prince Cem passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1495. His body was embalmed (treated with preservatives) by the King's order. It is narrated that before the King even received news of Cem's death, Celal Bey poured water, and Kapucubasi Sinan Bey shrouded him with his own turban and muslin cloth.
Finally, after performing the funeral prayer with his men who were present, they informed the King of France.
There are various accounts regarding whether Prince Cem died of illness or poisoning. Some Ottoman authors say that a barber sent by the Pope caused Prince Cem's death by shaving him with a poisoned razor, while others claim that the barber was Kapucubasi Mustafa Bey, sent by Bayezid.
Contemporary Italian authors state that Prince Cem was poisoned by the Pope and then handed over to the King of France. Burchard, the chief master of ceremonies who saw Prince Cem, stated that the Prince might have been poisoned by food that did not suit his constitution, while Venetian sources claim that he died of illness.
The chronicler accompanying Prince Cem also supports them, stating that the death was due to food poisoning or illness. Prince Cem's body was embalmed by his loyal men with the King's permission and then buried in a place called Gaeta. Sultan Bayezid Khan long struggled with diplomatic initiatives to obtain Cem's body.
Finally, he declared to Naples that if the body was not delivered within eight days, he would send the fleet against that country, land troops in Southern Italy, and take it by force if necessary. Alarmed by this heavy threat, King Frederico of Naples sent Prince Cem's body to Avlonya by ship. A fleet from the Turkish navy brought the coffin from Avlonya to Mudanya.
Thus, the body of Sultan Cem, received four years after he died in 1499, was buried in the mausoleum of his elder brother, Prince Mustafa, in the Muradiye Mosque complex in Bursa. May Allah have mercy on Prince Cem and forgive his shortcomings.
Upon the death of Prince Cem, the moderate and treaty-based policy pursued by the Ottoman Empire for 13 years, based on the concern that a war could be initiated externally using Prince Cem as a pretext and that there could be internal contributions to such a war, came to an end. A more active foreign policy began to be followed. A new chapter began in the life of the Ottoman Empire and Sultan Bayezid II.
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