The Flashman Papers 09 - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

After the old Maharaja's death, little is heard of Jeendan until Dalip's accession in 1843 (he was eight, not seven, when Flashman knew him). Thereafter, as Queen Mother and co-regent with her brother, she was occupied with intrigue, pacifying the Khalsa, and what Broadfoot, agog for scandal, called her misconduct and notorious immorality. The Agent said he felt more like a parish constable outside a brothel than a government representative, compared her to Messalina, and was in no doubt that drink and debauchery had turned her mind ('What do you think … of four young fellows changed as they cease to give satisfaction passing every night with the Rani?'). no doubt he was ready to retail all the salacious gossip he ould get, with the implication that such a corrupt regime called out for British intervention, but even allowing for exaggeration there is no doubt that, as Khushwant Singh puts it, the durbar 'abandoned itself to the delights of the flesh'. And even before her brother's murder Jeendan and her confederates were conspiring to betray the country for their safety and profit; Jawaheer's death was what finally determined her to launch the Khalsa to destruction—'thus did the Rani … plan to avenge her-self on the murderers.'

How she did it Flashman recounts fairly and in greater detail than is to be found elsewhere. It was a delicate, dangerous operation which she managed with consider-able skill, and unlike many later war criminals, she got away with it, for a time at least. After the war she continued as Regent until the end of 1846, when under a new treaty the British Resident at Lahore (Lawrence) was given full authority, and Jeendan was pensioned off. She did not take it meekly, and h ad to be removed from court—'dragged out by the hair, in her own words—and kept under guard. Suspected of conspiracy; she was deported from the Punjab—and suddenly, with discontent against the British rising, she was a national heroine, and the darling of the Khalsa again But there was to be no happy return, and when the Second Sikh War ended and Dalip had gone into English exile she followed him. She was only in her mid- forties when she died, in 1863, and her son took her ashes back to India

Mangla (or Mungela) was perhaps a more important influence on the Lahore durbar than Flashman realised. The child of white-slavers, she was born about 1815, and sold by her parents when she was ten. She worked in a brothel at Kangra and was bought by (or ran away with) a munshi, as his concubine, before setting up as a prostitute on her own account in Lahore. She prospered, and became the mistress of one Gulloo Mooskee, a personal attendant of Runjeet Singh's. He passed her on to his nephew, a lover of Jeendan's. This was in 1835, and the two young women began a partnership in intrigue which was to last for many years_ P Mangla became a member of Runjeet's harem, and played a leading role in convincing him that he was the father of Dalip Singh. In the next ten years she made herself indispensable to Jeendan as adviser and go-between, became the lover of Jawaheer Singh, and after his death obtained control of the treasury, adding to her already considerable fortune. Less beautiful than her friend an mistress, Mangla had 'a pair of fine hazel eyes of which she could make a most effective use, and an easy, winning carriage and address'.

(See Carmichael Smyth, Gardner, Khushwant Singh, Bruce.)

Mary, and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), who wore it at the coronation of her husband, George VI. It is now in her platinum crown in the Tower.

The last male to wear the Koh-i-Noor, little Maharaja Dalip Singh, had his share of misfortune. Deposed and exiled, he saw the great diamond again when it was shown to him by Queen Victoria on his arrival in England, and expressed pleasure that she should wear it. He was sixteen at the time, and unusually handsome, and the Queen (no doubt unaware that one of his relatives was referring to her as 'Mrs Fagin') was much taken with him; unfortunately his good looks were not Jeendan's only legacy, for he became a noted libertine, to the Queen's distress, and died, 'poor, portly, and promiscuous', in 1893. He is buried in the grounds of his home, Elveden Hall, Suffolk.

(See The Queen's Jewels, by Leslie Field, 1987; Weintraub.)

Notes

1. 'A very extraordinary and interesting sight', as the Queen recorded in her journal on May 11, 1887.

2. Whether at Flashman's prompting or not, the Queen engaged two Indian attendants in the following month, one of whom was the pushing and acquisitive Abdul Karim, known as 'Munshi' (teacher); he became almost as great a royal favourite as the celebrated ghillie, John Brown, had been, and was even more unpopular at Court. 'Munshi' not only tutored the Queen in Hindustani, which she began to learn in August 1887, but was given access to her correspondence, blotted her signature, and even buttered her toast at tea-time. He claimed to be the son of an eminent physician (one rumour said a Surgeon-General of the Indian Army) but investigation showed that his father was a prison pharmacist at Agra. There was, as Flashman says, a very Indian flavour to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations of 1887. During her reign, the population of the rest of the Empire had increased from 4,000,000 to 16,000,000, while that of the sub-continent had risen from 96,000,000 to a staggering 254,000,000. The Indian festivities began on February 16, and ranged from illuminations and banquets to the opening of new libraries, schools, hospitals, and colleges all over the country; in Gwalior, all arrears of land-tax (L1,000,000 in all) were remitted. In Britain itself the celebrations did not reach their climax until June 21, when the Queen, at the head of a procession led by the Indian Princes, attended a service in Westminster Abbey; there were loyal demonstrations everywhere (except in Cork and Dublin, where there were riotous demonstrations), and much rejoicing in the United States, where the Mayor of New York presided over a great Festival of Thanksgiving. (See The Life and Times of Queen Victoria, vol. ii (1888), by Robert Wilson, which has a detailed account of the Jubilee; Victoria, by Stanley Weintraub (1987).)

3. Flashman's memory is slightly at fault here. He was not, as he says, 'retired on half-pay' at this time; in fact, he had been in Singapore inspecting Australian horses for the East India Company army, and it was during this visit that his wife, Elspeth, was kidnapped by Borneo pirates, and the adventure began which culminated in the Flashmans' rescue from Madagascar in June, 1845. In the circumstances, his failure to remember his exact military status is understandable. As to his allowing himself to be bullied into going to India, he may not have been quite as reluctant as he suggests; the Governor of Mauritius certainly had no power to compel him, and it may well have been that the Punjab crisis (which had not yet assumed serious proportions) seemed a less daunting prospect than returning to face his ill-willers in England.

4. 'Elphy Bey' was Major-general William Elphinstone, commander of the British force which was wiped out on the retreat from Kabul in 1842, in which Flashman ingloriously won his first laurels. A fine soldier who distinguished himself at Waterloo, Elphinstone was hopelessly inept in Afghanistan; crippled by gout, worn out, and according to one historian, prematurely senile, he was incapable of opposing either his political advisers or the Afghans, but in fairness he was less to blame than those who appointed him to a post for which he was unfitted. Flashman gives a perceptive but characteristically uncharitable sketch of him in the first volume of the Flashman Papers. (See also J. W. Fortescue's History of the British Army, vol. xii (1927); Subedar Sita Ram's From Sepoy to Subedar (1873), and Patrick Macrory's Signal Catastrophe (1966).)

5. 'John Company'—the Honourable East India Company, described by Macaulay as 'the strangest of all govermnents .. for the strangest of all empires', was Britain's presence in India, with its own armed forces, civil service, and judiciary, until after the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when it was replaced by direct rule of the Crown. Flashman's definition of its boundaries in 1845 is roughly correct, and although at this period it controlled less than half of the subcontinent, his expression 'lord of the land' is well chosen: the Company was easily the strongest force in Asia, and at its height had a revenue greater than Britain's and governed almost one-fifth of the world's population. (See The East India Company, by Brian Gardner (1971))

Flashman, writing in the early years of the present century, occasionally uses the word Sirkar when referring to the British power; the word in this sense means 'government', but it was probably not applied exclusively to British authority as early as 1845.

6. The origins and development of the Sutlej crisis are controversial, and it is difficult even today to give an account that will satisfy everyone; nevertheless, Flashman's summary seems an eminently fair one. His racy little narrative of the power struggle at Lahore after the death of Runjeet Singh is accurate so far as it goes; indeed, it spares readers some of the gorier details (no doubt only because Flashman was unaware of them). His view of the gathering storm, the precarious position of the Lahore durbar, the menace of the Khalsa, and the misgivings of the British authorities about the loyalty of their native troops, and their ability to deal with an invasion, are reflected in the journals and letters of his contemporaries. Other points and personalities he mentions will be dealt with more fully in subsequent Notes. (See Appendix I, and G. Carmichael Smyth, History of the Reigning Family of Lahore (1847); W. Broadfoot, The Career of Major George Broadfoot (1888); Charles, Viscount Hardinge, Viscount Hardinge