by Anand, Anita
Ada Weatherill had been acquainted with the Maharajah since the mid-1880s. From an impoverished upbringing in Lambeth, south London, Ada went straight into domestic service at the age of thirteen. Within a couple of years she had worked her way up to a slightly more elevated role, as chambermaid at Cox’s Hotel in St James’s, a discreet establishment that was well known for providing wealthy men and their mistresses with rooms. It was there that Duleep Singh first met Ada.
Few failed to be moved by the sixteen-year-old’s youthful good looks. Long-limbed, with thick chestnut brown hair, bright eyes and creamy complexion, Ada attracted the attention of many men, but the Maharajah pursued her with a degree of obsession which surpassed the rest. Duleep and his ‘Marini’ – a nickname Duleep used for Ada in a play upon the word ‘Maharani’ – became inseparable. On meeting them together about town, one of Duleep’s old Alhambra companions, the playboy and playwright Julian Osgood Field, commented that Ada’s manifest charms were only spoilt by her ‘unmistakable Whitechapel [sic] accent . . . her pronunciation and the expressions she used were, to say the least, abnormal’.27 As long as she remained silent, Ada was admired by all.
When news of his new infatuation finally reached Bamba the atmosphere at Elveden became even more suffocating for the children. Sophia spent increasing amounts of time outdoors, as far as she could from her mother’s worsening depression. The princess developed a great love for the many hounds kennelled on the estate, which had been bred for locating prey and retrieving carcases. By talking to the kennel keepers she began to learn about dog rearing and breeding. She also ventured further than ever before, exploring her surroundings on the back of a small pony which had been bought for the children in better times. Sophia had been taught how to ride almost as soon as she could sit up straight in the saddle and she quickly became fast and fearless on horseback, surpassing her sisters in skill and daring. It became something of a joke between Catherine and Bamba that Sophia was at her happiest out in the fresh air, regardless of the English weather.28
On one of his rare visits home, in 1885, their father announced that he was planning a trip for them all, but kept the destination secret. When it emerged he had commissioned one of London’s leading dressmakers to design hot-weather outfits for the children, his intentions became clearer.
Duleep submitted the bill for the children’s clothes to the India Office (a preposterously high £1,102 5s 6d,29 which was returned unpaid) and then informed the government that he and his family intended to sail for India in the New Year. Though the Queen sent her courtiers to try to broker a last-minute deal, it soon became clear that no amount of pressure would change the minds of her ministers, for the India Office simply did not believe that the Maharajah would carry out his threat. They advised the sovereign to wait out the storm. They were wrong.
Sophia spent the days before Christmas packing her belongings for a long voyage to a country she had only heard about on her father’s knee. By January 1886, the Maharajah had put the entire contents of Elveden Hall up for sale. Everything from the fixtures in the house, to the few remaining pheasant eggs in the hatchery, was priced up and catalogued. In the end the items would only realise a fraction of their true value at auction. The exotic style of the Maharajah was no longer fashionable in the country. As The Times noted tartly, any future sale of Duleep’s unique home by the India Office might itself prove challenging: ‘Elveden Hall has been so transformed from an old red-brick mansion into a sort of Oriental Palace, that it would have to be considerably restored back to its English garb to suit most tastes.’30 It seemed that every trace of the Suffolk Maharajah would be erased after he left the country.
If Britain had lost its taste for the Maharajah, the feeling was mutual. Duleep stopped pleading for kindness and finally found his roar. He emptied his Coutts safety-deposit boxes of all his jewels, leaving behind just his debts. He then booked passage for his entire family, the nanny, an ayah and a valet to sail on the SS Verona at the end of March the following year.
The mere purchase of the tickets caused immediate ripples in India. Raj intelligence reports nervously described the popular excitement in the Punjab at the prospect of the Maharajah’s return. ‘Wild rumours are current regarding the powers that will be conferred on him,’ a report of 20 March 1886 warned. Without even knowing it, Sophia and her sisters were at the heart of the furore. One of Duleep’s cousins, Thakur Singh Sandhawalia, was ‘said to have sent letters announcing that the Maharaja has re-embraced the Sikh religion in England, and has betrothed his daughters to the Buriya Sardars in the Ambala district. The Sikhs are elated.’31 Buriya was a minor, yet populous principality in Punjab, where Sikhs retained the reins of power. Though they were surrounded by British-controlled territory, Buriya support in any possible future uprising was considered a real threat.
Finally waking up to the trouble on their horizon, the Viceroy of India and the Secretary of State looked for ways to head off the problem. As the date of the Duleep Singhs’ departure loomed they offered the Maharajah £50,000 as a one-off payment, in return for a promise that he would never again attempt to return to India.32 Ten days before the Verona was due to weigh anchor, at a fractious meeting at London’s Carlton Club, Duleep threw the offer back in their faces.
The Maharajah then broadcast his defiance to a wider audience. In an open letter to the London Standard, peppered with Punjabi words, the Maharajah addressed his ‘beloved Countrymen’:
It was not my intention ever to return to reside in India, but Sut-Gooroo [The True Guru-God], who governs a destiny, and is more powerful than I his erring creature, has caused circumstances to be so brought that against my will I am compelled to quit England . . . I now, therefore, beg forgiveness of you Khalsa-ji, or The Pure, for having forsaken the faith of my ancestors for a foreign religion; but I was very young when I embraced Christianity.
It is my fond desire on reaching Bombay to take the pahul again. But in returning to the faith of my ancestors I have no intention of conforming to the errors into Sikhism by those who were not true Sikhs such as wretched caste observances or abstinence from meats and drinks, which Sut-goroo has ordained should be received with thankfulness by all mankind, but to worship the pure and beautiful tenets of Baba Nanak and obey the commands of Gooroo Gobind Singh. Sut-gooroo’s Will be done. With Wah Gooroo Jee ki Futteh, I remain, My beloved countrymen, your own flesh and blood, Duleep Singh.33
The letter, which would have baffled the average reader, carried its message far beyond the breakfast tables of Britain. With its references to the pahul ceremony – the baptism of the Sikhs, through which they are inducted into the faith – this was a proclamation to the Punjab itself. The Maharajah was asking his ‘countrymen’ to forgive him for abandoning his faith. Directing his words particularly towards the Khalsa, the body of fully initiated Sikhs, he vowed to become one of them again. Elsewhere in the same letter he loftily informed the Khalsa that although he would be happy to rejoin them as their leader, he would have no time for their teetotal, vegetarian lifestyle.
When the family reached the SS Verona docked at Gravesend, Duleep appeared to be in buoyant mood and chatted animatedly with crew and passengers alike. But as they made their final preparations to leave England, thoughts of Queen Victoria filled the exiled Maharajah’s mind. In a letter that recalled their former mutual love, Duleep addressed ‘My Sovereign’.
Before quitting England I humbly venture to address your Majesty in order to convey to your Majesty the inexpressible gratitude I feel for all your Majesty’s graciousness both to me and mine during my stay in this country now extending over some 30 years. I could not face the pain that such a[n] event would cause me if I ventured to take my leave of your Majesty in person and therefore I humbly implore your Majesty’s forgiveness for not paying any last homage before starting for India.
Your Majesty’s heartbroken subject – Duleep Singh.34
5
Scramble for India
At almost f
our hundred feet long, forty feet wide and over 3,000 tonnes, the SS Verona was a great beast of a vessel. It had been designed by celebrated shipbuilder Robert Napier for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Constructed on the banks of the Clyde,1 with its sleek black hull, four towering masts and billowing central funnel, the Verona sat in the water like a long slick of ink,2 underlining the fact that in 1886, Britannia still ruled the waves.
Steam travel was a relatively recent advancement and the Verona was one of the first passenger and cargo vessels to stretch its capability. The speed of the ship, 12.5 knots, was still a novelty to most passengers, not least the younger Duleep Singh children. They watched in delight as the rushing waters sluiced past the great hull, making their trip seem even more like a magical adventure. After getting over their initial seasickness, Sophia and Edward loved their experience of first-class seafaring. The Maharani Bamba, meanwhile, had locked herself away in her cabin, tortured by worry. On 15 April, in a letter to her friend Mrs Lansing in Egypt, she tried to put a brave face on her predicament:
Thank you so very much for all your kind letters and I know that you forgive my not having written to you for so long which is so kind of you, I cannot tell you how I appreciate your kindness. I am thankful to say that all the dear ones here are in good health. We were poorly only one day, since then we have enjoyed our voyage so far. The Lord has been very merciful to us His loving Kindness has never failed us! I know he will not leave us at any time.3
Unlike their mother, the children knew nothing of the brewing political storm, and several of the ship’s passengers remarked on their joyous laughter. Yet not all of Sophia’s siblings were enjoying the voyage as much as she. Victor spent his time on the Verona simmering with rage. He had no desire to journey to a land that he had never seen, let alone reclaim a kingdom that meant nothing to him. The Maharajah’s heir took to referring to his father as ‘my idiotic parent’.4
Victor might have been a little more circumspect had he known that spies travelled with them on the Verona and that such outbursts from him, and indeed every word his father uttered, were being reported back to London. Duleep Singh was keeping the agents busy as he held court in the ship’s dining room, telling his captive audience all about his grievances and plan for a glorious return to his kingdom.
Meanwhile, strict instructions were issued by the Viceroy of India Lord Dufferin at his summer capital in Simla and wired to British officials at the next port of Yemen: ‘Duleep Singh left with wife and six children. A warrant will be prepared and sent to you. Viceroy hopes Maharajah’s removal may be so managed as to cause no excitement. We ought to include wife and three sons and three daughters in arrest warrants if possible.’5 The Gulf of Aden was a gateway to the Suez Canal and ultimately the Indian Ocean. The British had taken control of the narrow channel four years before and therefore had the authority to stop the Duleep Singhs travelling through it.
General Adam George Forbes Hogg, a genteel man who had been the British Resident in Aden for two years, left for Egypt immediately, wondering how difficult the confrontation with the Maharajah might be. On board the Verona, as the ship steamed its way closer to the Suez Canal, Duleep was also preparing himself. He had anticipated they would be stopped. He might even have hoped for a dramatic arrest. A potentially unedifying scene, involving handcuffs and tears from the youngest children, might cause outrage in England and therefore shift the position of the India Office. However when they came, the arrests were altogether more civilised.
Hogg was sent to wait for the ship to drop anchor at Port Said. In preparing for the showdown, the Maharajah wore his most opulent Indian robes, jewels and a Sikh turban. His children too were dressed in their finest clothes. The jetty, where the ship docked on 21 April, stood at one end of the Suez Canal. Hogg had desperately wanted the arrests to be low key and after boarding the vessel with his police escort implored the Maharajah to go quietly. His Highness, however, ‘refused to leave the ship unless arrested, so in presence of the captain I told him he must come with me, and touched him on the shoulder. He complied at once and the rest of the party came voluntarily,’ Hogg reported by telegram to Lord Dufferin.6
Sophia felt a combination of fear, confusion and humiliation as she and her family were led down the gangplank. Amidst a phalanx of officers in the searing heat, they left the Verona to the cheers of fellow passengers. As they were taken away, Duleep shouted: ‘I leave this ship unwillingly – my case will be the subject of a great state trial – before the House of Lords!’7 There would never be a trial.
For two weeks the family kicked their heels at the British residency in Aden, waiting to see what Duleep would do next. The Maharajah was trapped in diplomatic limbo: the British would not let him go forward, and he himself did not want to go back. If he wished to return to England he would have to swear loyalty to the throne and give up any notions of trying anything so foolhardy again. The British hoped that by making him sweat in Aden he would see the error of his ways. Sophia watched her mother grow increasingly desperate as she attempted to keep her head and those of her six listless children.
The days were long, tedious and swelteringly hot. If she had hoped for some comfort or support from her husband, the Maharani was to be disappointed. Sophia’s father was even more remote and distracted than usual. Maharani Bamba’s persistent entreaties must have eventually moved or at the very least bored Sophia’s father because, on 6 May, he relented and put his children and their mother on a ship destined for England. Sophia did not know it then, but this was the moment her father would abandon them for good.
In Aden, Duleep stood his ground and volleyed a series of telegrams to the Viceroy in Simla. These telegrams, which contained increasingly infuriating demands, hit the Raj’s otherwise cool and pleasant summer hill station like a gust of unwanted hot air. Duleep said he would give up all attempts to go to India if they paid him £250,000; when that offer was rejected, he asked for the seventeen servants who were waiting for him in Bombay to be sent to Aden and that the British government pay all their expenses. The communiqués continued, with the Maharajah showing no sign of compromise. The Viceroy despatched urgent missives to the India Office and to the Queen’s advisers. Even now, Victoria was inclined to defend Duleep, who she felt must be gripped by madness or sinister influences. She was also deeply worried about the fate of his innocent wife and children. ‘The Queen Empress thanks the Viceroy for his last kind letter of the 5th May about the poor Maharajah Duleep Singh,’ she wrote in reply to Lord Dufferin:
He was so charming & good for so many years, that she feels deeply grieved at the bad hands he has fallen into and the way in which he has been led astray, & the Queen thinks it will have a very bad effect in India if he is ill-used & rather severely punished & especially if the Maharanee (an excellent pious woman) & their six children especially the two boys, quite Englishmen, are in poverty or discomfort. In the Maharajah’s present state of excitement nothing can be done but he is sure to quiet down & then the Queen is ready herself to speak to him. Some money should be settled on his wife & children & a good man of business be placed about him & enough given him to enable him to live as a nobleman in England. The Queen wishes he or his son could be made a Peer & then they could live as any other nobleman’s family. It is most important that his Indian advisers & relatives should be kept from him for they are those who have brought him to this pass.8
The coterie of ‘advisers & relatives’, whom Queen Victoria blamed for Duleep’s imbalanced state of mind, were at that time travelling from India to reach the Maharajah. On 8 May, his cousin Thakur Singh Sandhawalia arrived in Aden with his associate Attar Singh. Duleep now wrote to the Viceroy in Simla in provocative terms: ‘I desire to take advantage of my cousin’s presence here and to be re-initiated into Sikhism.’9 This was a move that few – especially the British – believed he would go through with. There was very little they could do to stop him. The Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Sir Charles Umpherst
on Aitchison, tried to put the best possible spin on the government’s inevitable acquiescence to Duleep’s wishes: ‘Refusal would be misunderstood and might cause irritation as interference with freedom of religious conviction . . . As long as he does not return to India consent will do little if any harm.’10
The conversion would cause tremendous harm. Quite apart from raising further the expectations of India’s Sikhs, it damaged beyond repair Duleep’s relationship with Queen Victoria. She had tolerated Duleep’s excessive spending, his promiscuity and even his defiance of her government, but now he shunned Christianity. She had never truly believed that Duleep would turn his back on salvation, yet here he was preparing to become a Sikh once more. Never again would Queen Victoria cross her ministers for his sake.
The pahul baptism ceremony which Duleep had vowed to undertake was one that dated back to 1699. It was the lasting legacy of the tenth guru of the Sikhs and served as an unbreakable covenant between a Sikh and his religion.
After the death of Guru Nanak in 1539, a line of nine successors had successively taken his place at the head of the faith. All of the gurus practised their religion against the backdrop of Muslim dominance in India, and two would lose their lives because of their beliefs. In 1606, Emperor Jahangir sentenced Guru Arjan, the fifth guru, to a brutal death: he was made to sit on a hot metal plate and burning hot sand was poured on his body for five days. Despite the torture, he refused to comply. Dragged to the river to wash away the old scabs so that new wounds might be inflicted, he disappeared under the waters, never to be seen again. Jahangir’s grandson Aurangzeb would be just as intolerant.