by Anand, Anita
Humiliated, and with only her servants and very young family for company, Bamba slipped ever deeper into despair, so alarming friends with the speed of her decline that they urged the Maharajah to return home and take care of his wife and children. Lord Hertford, a friend, and former Lord Chamberlain under Benjamin Disraeli, wrote to Duleep warning of the disastrous effects of his absences. In reply, the Maharajah did not deny his neglect, but took no responsibility for it. Instead he blamed his actions on the British government, which had robbed him of his fortune: ‘The accompanying statement will show you the state my affairs are in and explain my apparent neglect of my wife and family. The fact is I cannot afford to bring them up to Town but if thru’ the kindness of the Queen, the government of India treat me in a liberal spirit none of my friends will ever be able to bring against me such a charge.’4
Photographs taken at the time show how almost overnight, the pretty young Maharani had become a hollow-eyed matron, dressed always in black, with her hair swept severely back off her face in a taut and joyless bun. The children’s nanny, Miss Date, did her best to fill the void left by the withdrawal of their mother, but it was largely up to the children to comfort themselves. It was during this time that the senior sisters became very protective of Sophia and Edward, who, in turn, held firm to one another. With Edward, Sophia knew where she stood, behaving like a little mother to him, providing him with a constancy and a warmth that the Maharani had become less able to give. Victor and Frederick had been sent to Eton soon after their tenth birthdays, and only returned for the holidays during which they were preoccupied with outdoor pursuits. Princess Catherine and Bamba spent their days absorbed by governesses and lessons. The girls were both bright and interested in learning; like most well-bred young ladies, their father had wanted them to be educated at home, though not excessively. Sophia was too young to join them and so, gradually, she was left behind.
As the decade turned, their father’s behaviour worsened, and the British government decided enough was enough. A lasting solution to the Maharajah’s financial situation had to be found. What the civil servants finally came up with set him on a collision course with Queen Victoria. In the early months of 1880, more than two years after Coutts had called in its loan, the government agreed to pay the Maharajah an interest-free sum of £57,000, enough to pay his debts and save him from bankruptcy. The loan came with one stringent condition: Elveden would have to be sold upon his death and all proceeds paid back to the British government. The Maharajah was left devastated by the proposed terms: it meant he would neither be able to leave his beloved Suffolk palace to his eldest son Victor, nor settle any pensions on his other children. The creditors were now closing in on him fast. He had only one roll of the dice left: Duleep wrote directly to the Queen.
Since Victoria was godmother to Victor and Sophia the Maharajah felt sure that she would not allow her godchildren to be left destitute after his death. He scribbled a plea for help, adding that since the British were responsible for much of the current misery in his life she was morally obliged to help him: ‘As the bankers are pressing for the repayment of the advance made by them I have no alternative but to accept the accommodation thus offered – as that or nothing. Nevertheless it breaks my heart to think my eldest son will have to be turned out of his house and home and leave the place with which his earliest associations in life are connected,’ he wrote. ‘No one knows but myself, my Sovereign, the agony that I suffered when I was turned out of my home and exiled from the land of my birth and I shudder to think of the sufferings my poor boy may undergo.’5
Queen Victoria’s reply was warm, but offered little remedy:
Dear Maharajah,
I have to acknowledge your letter of the 13th which has pained me so much. You know how fond I have always been of you, and how truly I felt for you, knowing how completely innocent you were of the unfortunate circumstances which led to you leaving your own country. I have at once written to Lord Hartington [the Secretary of State for India] to see what can be done to ensure your own comfort and a proper position for your children. As I once or twice mentioned to you before, I think you were thought extravagant and that may have led to a want of confidence as regards the future . . .
Trusting that the Maharanee and your dear children are well . . . 6
Victoria’s ‘told you so’ reply proved a watershed in their relationship. Duleep was so angered by it that for the next two years he shunned the royal court, locking himself away in the British Library, in an attempt to find documentary evidence to overturn the original treaty he had been forced to sign as a child. The result of his endeavours was a book entitled The Annexation of Punjaub which he wrote in association with a well-known critic of the Raj, the retired Indian Army Major Evans Bell.
Bell was an ardent secularist and scholar of Indian history. He had grown to despise the conduct of the British in India, and advocated an end to imperialism. The leather-bound volume Bell and Duleep Singh created was circulated among the press, politicians at Westminster, and courtiers at the palace. Though it was supposed to be an irresistible argument against the legality of British conduct in the Punjab, the volume was clumsily written, inelegant, hastily compiled and full of factual inaccuracies. Predictably the publication met with a hostile reception in Britain, and the Maharajah was forced onto the back foot by numerous calls to correct factual errors. The main thrust of his argument was all but ignored. The book was also deeply insulting to many of the most powerful figures in the history of British administration in India. Particular venom was directed towards Lord Dalhousie, the former Governor General of India who had presided over the annexation of Duleep’s old empire, whom Bell and the Maharajah described as ‘a violator of treaties who abused sacred trust’.7
When it became clear that his book would not move the establishment directly, Duleep Singh took his grievances to the British newspapers, writing ever wilder letters to The Times: ‘Generous and Christian Englishmen, accord me a just and liberal treatment for the sake of the fair name of your nation, of which I have now the honour to be a naturalised member, for it is more blessed to give than to take.’8
Far from eliciting sympathy, this public appeal made Duleep look ridiculous; the papers now accused the Maharajah of whinging venality. The reversal in their attitude marked an unbearable change in fortune for the family as a whole. Maharani Bamba and the children withdrew entirely from public life, as the aristocratic families who had once been so well disposed to the Duleep Singhs now chose to avoid them. The Maharani was forced to deal with the ostracism alone, while the Maharajah stayed away in London, and she began drinking heavily.
By 1883, Duleep was reduced to pleading with the government for more money. On 1 March, he wrote to Lord Kimberley, the Under Secretary of State for India, beseeching him to reconsider the final settlement and terms which would force him to sell Elveden. Gone were the claims for jewels and lost land, replaced only with the repeated request for ‘such provision as will enable me to maintain the high rank confirmed to me by my Gracious Sovereign during my life and by my Children after my death, worthy of the magnanimity of this great just and civilised Nation’.9 He was, he explained, not asking for much:
1st. I would venture humbly to request that if no greater generosity can be bestowed upon me at least my present life stipend of £25,000 per annum be continued to my male heirs at my death.
2ndly. That the £138,000 in which I am indebted to the Indian government together with the £105,000 given to me for the purchase of an estate in this country may be considered as full compensation for the loss of gold and silver plate and Palace jewels, thus relieving my stipend of the heavy charge of interest deducted from it.
3rdly. That the Premiums on the Policies of Life Insurance effected for the benefit of my younger children and widow paid by me out of my life stipend of £25,000 per annum be discharged from the surplus arising out of the unexpected balance of the sum allotted for the maintenance of myself my relatives and ser
vants of state at the annexation.10
For a proud man like Duleep, such a compromise was humiliating, but he was determined to leave some kind of legacy to his children: ‘My Lord, I feel very deeply the hardship to which my children will be subjected, viz., being brought up in the position which I occupy in this country through the graciousness of my Sovereign on being compelled to relinquish it at my death for a lower sphere of life.’11
The reply from Lord Kimberley was cold and uncompromising: ‘I regret to be under the necessity of informing your Highness that I am entirely unable to entertain the request which you have now put forward.’12 Friends of the Maharajah were appalled at the government’s intransigence and wrote personally to the Queen asking her to do something on his behalf. Some went as far as to argue that they had forced him to sign away his empire contrary to British law and Christian morality. One such was Lord Hertford, the venerable statesman and former Lord Chamberlain who had previously tried to intervene in Duleep’s affairs. Hertford informed the Queen that the Maharajah was facing certain ruin, due to the new settlement that the India Office was imposing upon him. He also alerted her to the fact that Duleep was selling jewels and family silver in order to pay for the basic upkeep of Elveden. As a result, Hertford warned, the Maharajah was being pushed into a volatile state of mind and was talking privately of quitting England for good.13
It was the first time since his arrival in England that Duleep had suggested he might want to live in India again. ‘Surely this is not only suicidal for himself, but may be productive of immense mischief to England,’14 wrote Hertford to the Queen’s private secretary. Victoria had for many months watched with dismay the developing stalemate between her Maharajah and her government. Memories of the Indian Mutiny were still very raw. Duleep’s presence in Punjab might be the catalyst for another armed revolt. Victoria dispatched her courtiers to calm the Maharajah and personally pressed the India Office to show more generosity towards him. The Secretary of State, however, would not be moved. Duleep was left with little option but to come up with funds himself.
After neglecting his family for almost two years, the Maharajah returned to Elveden Hall shamefaced, in order to plunder its riches. Sophia and her siblings watched in confused horror as their father stripped the house of some of his most treasured belongings in order to collect them for auction. Jewels, rare Indian carpets, silver teapots, embroideries and ‘25,000 Oz of Chased Plate’15 – ornately engraved silver platters – were carried out in crates by the London auctioneers Philips, Son & Neale. The lot that would cause the greatest excitement was ‘a magnificent centrepiece, 39 inches high, composed of a large and finely modelled figure of an elephant carrying the Maharaja of the Punjab, surrounded by several equestrian groups’.16 Duleep had been reduced to selling himself.
Not even a sympathetic editorial in The Times could persuade the India Office to think again:
The news of his Highness being compelled to sell his jewels and other valuables will excite a deep feeling of sympathy among all who are acquainted with the history of the ‘Lion of the Punjab’ . . . There is very good reason for the complaint on his part that he has practically been deprived unfairly of a large share of the income which was guaranteed to him . . . Although the government, from a purely business point of view might be justified in believing that the Maharajah has ‘partly brought his pecuniary difficulties upon himself’, it could be said in extenuation that the ways of Oriental potentates are not as those of modern English princes . . . A golden bridge might, with generosity and dignity, be built for retreat from a position which is embarrassing the both parties.17
No such bridge materialised, and on 23 July the auction went ahead, raising in excess of £20,000. As it did, Duleep threw down the gauntlet: the catalogue which accompanied the sale stated that he was raising money ‘preparatory to his leaving for India’. If the British threatened his children’s inheritance, then he would return, with his children, to his homeland, no matter how it might stir the Punjab. The auction of the Duleep Singhs’ belongings triggered feverish debate, and questions were raised in the House of Commons. The Maharajah wrote in unsparing terms, accusing the Queen and her government of setting out to destroy him from the very start: ‘From childhood I have been absolutely in the hands of the government without a will or independent action of my own – trusting implicitly to their good faith. Now there appears to have been a deliberate intention from the first, merely to do what least might suffice to answer my urgent demands and leave my children and family to gradually sink in the world.’18
Duleep now thought only of vengeance, wanting nothing less than to smash the Raj’s hold on his former kingdom. His family saw little of him during this time. He remained almost entirely in London – where he rented a townhouse at 53 Holland Park – plotting his next move or drinking away his frustrations. The more he fulminated about his past, the more he convinced himself that Queen Victoria, whom he had once loved, was at the heart of a conspiracy to impoverish him and his children. He took to referring to her as ‘Mrs Fagin’,19 after Dickens’s fictional receiver of stolen property.
In a letter to Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Maharajah made dark threats: ‘there is a terrible storm gathering in India and I hope to render such service as to compel the principal ministers of the Crown to recognise my just claims which perhaps under the present circumstances they may have been disinclined to admit. I know that the advent of Russia is hailed with intense joy both by the people and Princes of India in their secret hearts whatever they may outwardly say and they are all prepared to rebel as soon as that Power advances a little nearer.’20 In the same letter, he penned the words which would wound Victoria even more. He wanted the Queen to know that he was thinking of abandoning his Christianity: ‘I may re-embrace the faith of my ancestors and eventually take up my residence in India, but I will not take the latter step without laying before her Majesty my reasons for doing so.’21
Victoria was taken aback, having always considered herself to be Duleep’s ‘best friend’.22 Her reply, one month later, was an appeal to these bonds of friendship and sentiment. Her youngest son, Leopold, Duke of Albany, had died two years before from a fatal brain haemorrhage caused by a combination of a fall and his haemophilia. The Queen reminded Duleep of his affection for her youngest boy: ‘You were so much attached to my dear Leopold from his earliest childhood, that I thought you would like to possess a recollection of him, and therefore send you an enamelled photograph of him.’ Victoria then came to the crux of the matter: ‘You mentioned the possibility of returning to your own old faith. Now, considering what a fine and fervent Christian you were for between 30 and 40 years, I cannot believe you would forsake the blessings of what is your religion – for one which offers none of its comforts and blessings . . . I am sure the Maharani (to whom I wish to be kindly remembered) and your children would feel the same. Believe me always, your affectionate and faithful friend, Victoria R.I.’23
Duleep Singh’s response was cutting and to the point: ‘My Sovereign . . . I embraced Christianity because those by whom I was surrounded at the time happened to be so consistent in their conduct. We Sikhs though savages by nature, implicitly act up to the (such as it is) morality of our faith. We do not profess one thing and do the other.’24
As Victoria anticipated, the Maharani found her husband’s threat to abandon his Christian faith devastating. Bamba spent her time locked away in her room weeping. On the occasions Duleep did return to Elveden, he ignored his wife but spoiled his children with expensive gifts and attention. Sophia and her siblings loved hearing tales about India and the kingdom he promised to restore to them. The girls in particular wanted to know about their grandmother, the beautiful and formidable Rani Jindan.25 Duleep’s eldest and youngest daughters received their father’s stories in very different ways. For Princess Bamba they were a reminder of her father’s dispossession and they inflamed in her a sense of anger and vulnerability. For young Sophia they were merely exotic fables
– fairy tales. Catherine’s reactions lay somewhere in between. The Maharajah’s visits were all too fleeting and soon he was on the train back to London again.26
The sense of disorder at Elveden deepened. Sophia, who turned eight in 1884, was coming to the age where her education ought to have been taken in hand. But with her mother locked in her sadness and her father absent, there was no one to instruct teachers or look after her interests. Her lessons, if they happened at all, were haphazard and Sophia’s education was severely set back. Her poor beginnings were reflected in her poor penmanship: Sophia’s handwriting remained messy and difficult to read for the rest of her life.
Elveden too began to show signs of neglect. Three years of unseasonably hot weather and poor rainfall caused crops on the farms to fail. The Maharajah’s continuing absence meant that the sporting part of the estate was allowed to run to ruin. Without the great hunts to check numbers, rabbits took over the fields. Without the supervision of gamekeepers, many of whom had been let go as the debts mounted, the stock of grouse and partridge was allowed to dwindle. Elveden’s pheasant eggs, which once sold for 9d a dozen in London’s finest shops, were no longer boxed up and sent to Mayfair, and were left to poachers instead. Everywhere young Sophia looked, she saw decline and despair.
The only real change in the three years that followed the first Elveden auction came when Duleep Singh transferred his amorous attentions from Polly Ash onto a mysterious and even younger new mistress.
