meeting with the Queen at Balmoral. In fact, his recollections of Balmoral are so exact, even down to topics of conversation and the state of the weather on particular days, that one suspects he is indebted to the detailed diary which his wife Elspeth kept during their married life, and which forms part of The Flashman Papers. (For corroboration, see Queen Victoria's Letters, 1827-61, ed. Benson and Esher; The Queen at Balmoral by F. P. Humphrey (1893); Life of the Prince Consort, 5 vols., by Sir T. Martin (1875-8o); Twenty Years at Court, by Eleanor Stanley (1916); and A Diary of Royal Movements … in the life of Queen Victoria (1883).
4. No record can be found of a visit by Lord Palmerston to Balmoral in late September, 1856; obviously it must have been kept secret, along with the disturbing news that chapattis had appeared in an Indian regiment: most histories of the Mutiny do not mention chapattis as appearing until early in 1857.
For the rest, Flashman gives a fair picture of 'Pam' as his contemporaries saw him — a popular, warm- hearted, impulsive, and (to some eyes) deplorable figure whom Disraeli described as a 'painted old pantaloon'. Lord Ellenborough was a former Governor-General of India, and Sir Charles Wood, although at the Admiralty when Flashman met him, had been President of the Board of Control for India from 1853-55, and was to return to the India Office from 1859-66.
5. The missionaries were greatly displeased at a government decision in 1856-7 that education in Indian schools should be secular. The fear of Christianisation was certainly present among Indians at this time, and is considered to have been a main cause of the Mutiny. Preaching army officers were regarded as especially dangerous: Governor-General Canning, who was was unjustly suspected of being an ardent proselytiser, actually said of one religiously-minded colonel that he was unfit to be trusted with his native regiment, and Lord Ellenborough delivered a strong warning in the House of Lords on June 9, 1857, against 'colonels connected with missionary operations … You will see the most bloody revolution which has at any time occurred in India. The English will be expelled.' This contrasts with the statement of Mr Mangles, chairman of the East India Company: 'Providence has entrusted the empire of Hindoostan to England in order that the banner of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of India to the other.'
6. John Nicholson (1821-57) was one of the legendary figures of British India, and an outstanding example of the type of soldier-administrator who became known as 'the desert English', possibly because many of them were Scots or Irish. Their gift, and it was rare, was of winning absolute trust and devotion from the people among whom they worked in the East; Nicholson had it to an unusual degree, and when he was only twenty-seven the religious sect of 'Nikkulseynites' was formed, worshipping him with a fervour which caused him much annoyance. As a soldier and administrator he was brilliant; as a Victorian case-study, fascinating. Since he served in the First Afghan War he would certainly have known Flashman, but it is interesting that they met as described here, since in late 1856 Nicholson should have been far away on the frontier. However, as he was about to enter on new duties at Peshawar about this time, it is conceivable that he came south first, and that they met on the Agra Trunk Road.
7. The Guides was perhaps the most famous fighting unit in the history of British India. Raised by Henry Lawrence in 1846, and commanded by Harry Lumsden, it became legendary along the frontier as an intelligence and combat force of both infantry and cavalry (Kipling, it will be remembered, used the Guides' mystique in his
8. Flashman's assumption that the Rani would be much older was not unnatural. He had heard Palmerston describe her as 'old when she married', which, by Indian standards, she was, being well into her teens.
9. The General Service Enlistment Act (1856) required recruits to serve overseas if necessary. This was one of the most important grievances of the sepoys, who held that crossing the sea would break their caste.
10. Irregular cavalry units of the British Indian armies occasionally dressed in a highly informal style, so the Afghan rissaldar might conceivably have been wearing an old uniform coat of Skinner's Horse ('The Yellow Boys'). But it is unlikely that he had ever served in that unit — the Guides would have been more his mark.
11. The society of Thugs (lit. deceivers) were worshippers of the goddess Kali, and practised murder as a religious devotion which would ensure them a place in paradise. They preyed especially on travellers, whom they would join on the road with every profession of friendship before suddenly falling on them at a prearranged signal; the favourite method of killing was strangulation with a scarf. The cult numbered thousands before Sir William Sleeman stamped them out in the 1830s, but since many continued at large, and the Jhansi region was traditionally a hotbed of thugee, it is perfectly possible that ex-Thugs were active as Flashman says. In some cases it was possible to identify a former Thug by a tattoo on his eyelid or a brand on his back.
12. 'Pass him some of his own tobacco' — a grim joke by Ilderim's companion. 'Pass the tobacco' was the traditional verbal signal of the Thugs to start killing.
13. There was indeed a Makarram Khan, who served in the Peshawar Police, and later became a notable frontier raider at the head of a band of mounted tribesmen, fighting against the Guides cavalry. (See
14. The offering and touching of a sword hilt, in token of mutual respect, was traditional in the Indian Cavalry. (See
15. It is curious that Flashman makes no reference to dyeing his skin (as Ilderim had suggested) and indeed seems to imply that he found it unnecessary. But dark as he was, and light-skinned as many frontiersmen are, he must surely have stained his body, or he could hardly have passed for long in a sepoy barrack-room.
16. Of the sepoys whom Flashman mentions by name, only two can be definitely identified as serving in the 3rd N.C. skirmishers at this time — Pir Ali and Kudrat Ali, who were both corporals, although Flashman refers to Pir Ali as though he were an ordinary sepoy.
17. 'Addiscombe tripe' refers to the officers, not the jemadars and NCO's. Addiscombe was the military seminary which trained East India Company cadets from 1809 to 1861. Flashman's prejudice may be explained by the fact that Lord Roberts, among other famous soldiers, went there.
18. The fears and grievances which Flashman recounts probably give a fair reflection of the state of mind of many sepoys in early 1857. Rumours of polluted flour and greased cartridges, and stories like that of the Dum-Dum sweeper, reinforced the suspicion that the British were intent on interfering with their religion, breaking their caste, altering terms of enlistment, and generally changing the established order. To these were added the Oude sepoys' discontent at the recent annexation of their state, which cost them certain privileges, and resentment at the changed attitude towards them (by no means imaginary, according to some contemporary writers) of a new generation of British officers and troops, who seemed more ignorant and contemptuous than their predecessors; this unfortunately coincided with the arrival in the Bengal Army of a better class of sepoys, possibly quicker to take offence — or, according to some writers, more spoiled.
All these things combined to undermine confidence and cause unrest, and there was no lack of agitators ready to play on the sepoys' fears. The belief that the British intended to Christianise India (see Note 5) was widespread, and reinforced by such reforms as the suppression of thugee and suttee (widow-burning). The resentment which reform had created among Indian princes has been referred to: in addition, educational innovations created disquiet (see Lawrence's evidence to the
19. Mrs Captain MacDowall's advice on the running of an Indian household might serve as a model for its time. (See the
20. The 19th N.I., who had rioted in February, were disbanded at the end of March, having refused the new cartridge. The paper which Mangal showed to Flashman was undoubtedly the March 28 issue of Ashruf-al-Akbar, of Lucknow, which predicted a great holy war throughout India and the Middle East; however, it gave a warning against relying on Russian assistance, describing them as 'enemies of the faith'.
21. Sepoy Mangal Pandy (? -1857), of the 34th Native Infantry, ran amok on the parade ground at
