Selim II (Ottoman Turkish: سليم ثانى Selīm-i sānī, ; 28 May 1524 – 15 December 1574), also known as Selim the Blond () or Selim the Drunk (), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hurrem Sultan. Selim had been an unlikely candidate for the throne until his brother Mehmed died of smallpox, his half-brother Mustafa was strangled to death by the order of his father, his brother Cihangir succumbed to chronic health issues, and his brother Bayezid was killed on the order of his father after a rebellion against Selim. Selim died on 15 December 1574 and was buried in Hagia Sophia. Early life Selim was born in Constantinople (Istanbul), on 28 May 1524, during the reign of his father Suleiman the Magnificent. His mother was Hurrem Sultan, a slave and concubine who was born an Orthodox priest's daughter in contemporary Ukraine, and later was freed and became Suleiman's legal wife. In 1543, at Manisa, Selim took as concubine Nurbanu Sultan, whose background is disputed. She was the mother of Murad III, Selim's successor. Selim legally married Nurbanu, just like his father married his mother. Reign Selim II gained the throne after palace intrigue and fraternal dispute, succeeding as sultan on the 7th of September 1566. Selim's Grand Vizier, Mehmed Sokollu and wife, Nurbanu Sultan, a native of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, controlled much of state affairs, and two years after Selim's accession succeeded in concluding at Constantinople a treaty (17 February 1568) with the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II, whereby the Emperor agreed to pay an annual "present" of 30,000 ducats and granted the Ottomans authority in Moldavia and Walachia. Gazanfer Agha (d. 1602), a friend to Selim and to the writer Mustafa Ali, was castrated so he could serve in Selim's harem. (Gazanfer's younger brother Cafer was also castrated, but did not survive.) A plan had been prepared in Constantinople for uniting the Volga and Don by a canal in order to counter Russian expansion toward the Ottomans' northern frontier. In the summer of 1569 a large force of Janissaries and cavalry were sent to lay siege to Astrakhan and begin the canal works, while an Ottoman fleet besieged Azov. However, a sortie from the Astrakhan garrison drove back the besiegers. A Russian relief army of