Koh-i-Noor

by William Dalrymple

6.Maharajah Duleep Singh Correspondence, edited by Ganda Singh, Patiala, 1972, p. 90.

  7.Rani Jindan to J. Lawrence, undated, translated from Punjabi, in ibid., p. 26.

  8.Letter from Hardinge to Eliot, 27 August 1847, in ibid., p. 32.

  9.Kushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs: 1839–2004, Vol. 2, Delhi, 2004, p. 78.

  10.The Duke of Argyll, India under Dalhousie and Canning, London, 1865, p. 9.

  11.Edwin Arnold, The Marquis of Dalhousie’s Administration of British India (two volumes), London, 1862, Vol. 1, p. 103.

  12.James Andrew Broun Ramsay, Marquess of Dalhousie, Private Letters, London, 1911, p. 62.

  13.Ibid.

  14.Letter from Robert R. Adams, Assistant Comissioner of Lahore, to Lena Login, 2 November 1849. Reproduced in Lady Login, Lady Login’s Recollections: Court Life and Camp Life 1820–1904, London, 1917, p. 80.

  15.Ibid., pp. 76–7.

  16.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 217.

  17.Ibid., p. 166.

  18.Ibid., p. 128.

  19.Delhi Gazette, quoted in the Kendal Mercury, 30 September 1848.

  20.Broughton Mss, Dalhousie to Hobhouse, 22 December 1848, British Library (BL) 36456–36483.

  21.Ibid.

  22.Broughton Mss, Dalhousie to Hobhouse, 4 April 1849, BL 36456–36483.

  23.Mining Journal, 13 January 1849.

  8.PASSAGE TO ENGLAND

  1.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 154.

  2.Ibid., p. 155.

  3.Ibid., p. 174.

  4.Ibid., p. 175.

  5.Lady Login, Recollections, p. 83.

  6.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 175.

  7.Ibid., p. 177.

  8.Ibid.

  9.Ibid.

  10.Alexander and Anand, Queen Victoria’s Maharajah, p. 19.

  11.Avtar Singh Gill, Lahore Darbar and Rani Jindan, Ludhiana, 1983, p. 231.

  12.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 157.

  13.Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 1 July 1849.

  14.Quoted in Alexander and Anand, Queen Victoria’s Maharajah, p. 13.

  15.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 124.

  16.Reginald Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, London, 1912, p. 175.

  17.Ibid.

  18.Ibid.

  19.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 124.

  20.Ibid.

  21.Howarth, The Koh-i-noor Diamond, p. 138.

  22.Morning Post, 1 July 1850.

  23.Ibid.

  24.Ibid.

  25.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 139.

  26.Ibid.

  27.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 396.

  9.THE GREAT EXHIBITION

  1.Queen Victoria’s Journals, 1 May 1851, Royal Archives (RA).

  2.Roger Fulford, The Prince Consort, London, 1949, p. 45.

  3.Juliet Gardiner, Queen Victoria, London, 1997, p. 79.

  4.John Loadman and Francis James, The Hancocks of Marlborough: Rubber, Art and the Industrial Revolution – A Family of Inventive Genius, Oxford, 2010, p. 127.

  5.The Times, 2 May 1851.

  6.Ibid.

  7.Glasgow Herald, 5 May 1851.

  8.Quoted in The North American Miscellany, Boston, 1851, Vol. 2, p. 334 (Vol. 939 of American Periodical Series 1800–1850).

  9.London Evening Standard, 16 June 1851.

  10.Ibid.

  11.Ibid.

  12.Ibid.

  13.London Evening Standard, 23 June 1851.

  14.London Evening Standard, 14 October 1851.

  10.THE FIRST CUT

  1.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 172.

  2.Cyril Davenport, The English Regalia, London, 1897.

  3.Illustrated London News, 24 July 1852.

  4.Morning Chronicle, 19 July 1852.

  5.Louis J. Jennings (ed.), The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, Cambridge, 2012, p. 354.

  6.Ibid.

  7.Ibid.

  8.Traditional horizontal plate used for diamond cutting, made from a special hard and porous cast iron.

  9.Morning Chronicle, 19 July 1852.

  10.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 180.

  11.Login, Lady Login’s Recollections, p. 88.

  12.Dalhousie, Private Letters, p. 156.

  13.Ibid., p. 157.

  11.QUEEN VICTORIA’S ‘LOYAL SUBJECT’

  1.Queen Victoria’s Journals, 6 July 1854, RA.

  2.Ibid., 10 July 1854.

  3.Login, Lady Login’s Recollections, p. 123.

  4.Ibid., pp. 123–4.

  5.Ibid., p. 124.

  6.Ibid.

  7.Ibid., pp. 125–6.

  12.THE JEWEL AND THE CROWN

  1.Login, Lady Login’s Recollections, pp. 125–6.

  2.Ibid.

  3.A cross pattée (or ‘cross patty’, known also as ‘cross formée/formy’) is a type of cross that has arms narrow at the centre and often flared in a curved or straight line, so that they are broader at the perimeter.

  4.Garrard’s invoice, reproduced in Suzy Menkes, The Royal Jewels, London, 1985, p. 12.

  5.Lady Normanby to Lord Mulgrave, 2 July 1861, Normanby Archives.

  6.Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, p. 463.

  7.Ibid., p. 470.

  8.Duleep Singh to Queen Victoria, 13 Sep 1880, QVM, p. 138.

  9.Queen Victoria to Duleep Singh, 18 Sep 1880, QVM, p. 139.

  10.Duleep Singh to Palace, Memo 15 December 1883, Vic Add N2/145, RA.

  11.Duleep to Queen Victoria, 16 September 1884, Vic Add N2/176, RA.

  13.‘WE MUST TAKE BACK THE KOH-I-NOOR’

  1.A cockade is a circular arrangement of gems, made to look a little like a rosette.

  2.Coronation Oath Act 1688, Section III.

  3.Kuldip Nayar, Tribune, 17 July 2005.

  4.Ibid.

  5.Taken from a programme presented by Anita Anand in 2002.

  6.This is the non-metric measurement system, current in the nineteenth century, for the 108.93 carat Koh-i-Noor.

  7.Daily Telegraph, 4 December 2015.

  8.In the Abjad system, the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values.

  Bibliography

  1. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

  Bodleian Library

  Kimberley Papers

  British Library

  Broughton Diaries and Memorandum: Add Mss 43744

  Broughton Papers: Add Mss 36456–83

  Broughton Papers: Add Mss 46915

  Duleep Singh Family Papers: Mss Eur E377

  Wellesley Papers: Add Mss 37274–318

  National Archives of India, New Delhi

  Foreign Dept, Political, Foreign 1849 Dept Pol Consultation 22 Dec, No. 11. Orders for the collection of information re the history of the KOHINUR

  Foreign Political Dept, 1850 Dept, 14 June No. 72, 74, 75

  Subject: Account of the KOHINUR while it was in the possession of the Lahore Durbar previously. Duplicate Copy. No. 174 of 1850

  Punjab Archives

  Delhi Residency Papers

  Private Archives

  The Fraser Papers, Inverness

  The Letters of Queen Victoria, Project Gutenberg, eBook, Vol. 2

  Royal Archives

  Queen Victoria’s Journals

  The Letters of Queen Victoria, Windsor Castle, via Project Gutenberg

  2. PERSIAN, URDU AND SANSKRIT SOURCES

  Manuscripts

  Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library (formerly India Office Library), London

  BM Persian Mss Or 53 Letters of Khur Shah

  BM Ms Or 1717, Treatise on Precious Stones by Mohammad, son of Ashraf al-Hussaini

  Kashmiri, Abd ol-Karim, Bayan-e-Waqe’, translated by H. G. Pritchard, BM Mss Add 30782.

  Published Texts

  Askari, Syed Hasan, Raja Jugal Kishore Despatch Regarding the Sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah, Indian Historical Records Association: A Retrospect 1919–1948, Vol. 25,
Dec 1948.

  Astarabadi, Mirza Mahdi, ‘Tarikh-e Jahangosha-ye Naderi: The Official History of Nader’s Reign’, Bombay lithograph 1849/1265.

  Babur, The Babur Nama or Journal of the Emperor Babur, translated from the Turkish by Annette Susannah Beveridge, London, 2006.

  Durrani, Sultan Mohammad Khan ibn Musa Khan, Tarikh-i-Sultani, began writing on 1 Ramzan 1281 AH (Sunday, 29 January 1865) and published first on 14 Shawwal 1298 AH (Friday, 8 September 1881), Bombay.

  Fazl, Abu’l, The History of Akbar, Vol. 1, translated by Wheeler M. Thackston, Cambridge, MA, 2015.

  Garrett, Lt Col. H. L. O., and G. L. Chopra, Events at the Court of Ranjit Singh 1810–1817, Lahore, 1935.

  The Garuda Purana, Primary source edition, edited and translated by Manmatha Nath Dutt, Calcutta, 1908.

  Hultzsch, E., South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. 2, New Delhi, 1992 (reprint).

  India in the Fifteenth Century, Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India, edited by Richard Henry Major, London, 1857.

  Jahangir, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, translated by Alexander Rogers, edited by Henry Beveridge, London, 1919.

  Jauhar, The Tezkereh al-Vakiat or Private Memoirs of the Emperor Humayun, translated by Charles Stewart, Edinburgh, 1832.

  The Kautilya Arthasastra, translated by R. P. Kangle, New Delhi, 2004.

  Khan, Dargah Quli, The Muraqqa’ e-Dehli, translated by Chander Shekhar, New Delhi, 1989.

  Khan, Inayat, The Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan, edited by W. E. Begley and Z. A. Desai, New Delhi, 1990.

  Khusrau, Amir, The Campaigns of Alauddin Khalji, being the Khazainul Futuh (Treasures of Victory) of Hazrat Amir Khusrau of Delhi, translated by Habib Muhammad, Madras, 1931.

  Limbird, J., The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, containing original papers, Vol. 8, London, 1845.

  Marvi, Mohammad Kazem, Alam Ara-ye Naderi (three volumes), edited by Mohammad Amin Riyahi, Tehran (third edition), 1374/1995.

  The Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, translated by Francis Gladwin, Calcutta, 1788.

  Mir, Zikr-I Mir: The Autobiography of the Eighteeenth Century Mughal Poet, Mir Muhammad Taqi ‘Mir’, translated, annotated and introduced by C. M. Naim, New Delhi, 1998.

  Muhammad, Fayz, Siraj ul-Tawarikh (The Lamp of Histories), Kabul, 1913, translated by R. D. McChesney (forthcoming).

  Muhammad, Mirza Ata, Naway Ma’arek (The Song of Battles), published as Nawā-yi ma’ar-ik. Nuskha-i khat.t.ī-i Mūza-i Kābul mushtamal bar wāqi’āt-i ‘as.r-i Sadōzā‘ī u Bārakzā‘ī, ta’līf-i Mīrzā Mīrzaā ‘At.ā‘-Muh.ammad, Kabul, 1331 AH/1952 (Nashrāt-i Anjuman-i tārīkh, No. 22 [with a preface by Ah.mad-’Alī Kohzād, without index]; idem: Āryānā, VIII (1328–9 AH/1950), Nos. 7–10 (pp. 41–8), No. 11 (pp. 46–8), No. 12 (pp. 49–56); IX (1329–30 AH/1951), Nos. 1–12 (pp. 41–8); X (1330–1 AH/1952), Nos. 1–9 (pp. 41–8), No. 10 (pp. 49–56).

  Mukhlis, Anand Ram, Tazkira, in Sir H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India as Told by its own Historians (eight volumes), London, 1867–77.

  Shuja, Shah, Waqi’at-i-Shah Shuja (Memoirs of Shah Shuja), written in 1836, supplement by Mohammad Husain Herati, 1861; published as Wāqi’āt-i Shāh-Shujā‘. Daftar-i avval, duvvum: az Shāh-Shujā‘. Daftar-i sivvum: az Muh.ammad-H.usain Harātī, Kabul, 1333 AH/1954 (Nashrāt-i Anjuman-i tārīkh-i Afgānistān, No. 29) [published after the text of the Kabul manuscript, without notes or index, with a preface by Ah.mad-’Alī Kohzād]. Idem: Āryānā, X (1330–1 AH/1952), No. 11 (pp. 33–40), No. 12 (pp. 33–40); XI (1331–2 AH/1953), Nos. 1–4 (pp. 49–56), No. 5 (pp. 49–51), Nos. 6–11 (pp. 49–56).

  Suri, Sohan Lal, Umdat-ut-Tawarikh: An Original Source of Punjab History, Chronicles of the Reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh 1831–1839 by Lala Sohan Lal Suri, translated by V. S. Suri, Delhi, 1961; Amritsar, 2002.

  3. CONTEMPORARY WORKS AND PERIODICAL ARTICLES IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

  ‘Allami, Abul Fazl, The A’in-i Akbari, translated and edited by H. Blochmann, New Delhi, 1977.

  Archer, Major, Tours in Upper India, London, 1833.

  Argyll, The Duke of, India under Dalhousie and Canning, London, 1865.

  Arnold, Edwin, The Marquis of Dalhousie’s Administration of British India (two volumes), London, 1862.

  Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 28 (1839).

  Ballantyne Press, The Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Government: A Narrative, London, 1884.

  Bazin, Père Louis, ‘Mémoires sur dernières années du règne de Thamas Kouli-Kan et sa mort tragique, contenus dans une lettre du Frère Bazin’, 1751, in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères, Paris, 1780, Vol. 4, pp. 277–321.

  Bell, Evans, The Annexation of the Punjab and the Maharajah Duleep Singh, London, 1882.

  Bernier, François, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1656–68, edited by Archibald Constable, translated by Irving Brock, Oxford, 1934.

  Burnes, Alexander, Travels into Bokhara, Being the Account of a Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia, also a Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus from the Sea to Lahore (three volumes), London, 1834.

  Connolly, Arthur, Journey to the North of India, 1829–31 (two volumes), London, 1838.

  Dalhousie, James Andrew Broun Ramsay, Marquess of, Private Letters, Edinburgh and London, 1910; London, 1911.

  Davenport, Cyril, The English Regalia, London, 1897.

  Duncan, Jonathan, ‘Purn Puri’, Asiatic Researches (1792).

  Eden, Emily, the Hon. Letters from India, edited by Eleanor Eden, London, 1872.

  —, Miss Eden’s Letters, edited by Violet Dickinson, London, 1927.

  —, Up the Country: Letters from India, London, 1930.

  Eden, Fanny, Tigers, Durbars and Kings: Fanny Eden’s Indian Journals 1837–1838, transcribed and edited by Janet Dunbar, London, 1988.

  Edwards and Merivale, Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, London, 1873.

  Elphinstone, Mountstuart, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India; Comprising a View of the Afghaun Nation, and a History of the Dooraunee Monarchy, London, 1819.

  Foster, Sir William, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India 1615–19, as Narrated in his Journal and Correspondence, New Delhi, 1990.

  Fraser, James, The History of Nadir Shah, London, 1742.

  —, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan, in the Years 1821 and 1822, London, 1825.

  Griffin, Lepel, Ranjit Singh and the Sikh Barrier between our Growing Empire and Central Asia, Oxford, 1892.

  Hanway, Jonas, An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea … to which are added The Revolutions of Persia during the present Century, with the particular History of the great Userper Nadir Kouli (four volumes), London, 1753.

  Harlan, J., A Memoir of India and Afghanistan, with Observations on the Present Exciting and Critical State and Future Prospects of those Countries, Philadelphia, 1842.

  Honigberger, John Martin, Thirty-Five Years in the East: Adventures, Discoveries, Experiments, and Historical Sketches, Relating to the Punjab and Cashmere; in Connection with Medicine, Botany, Pharmacy, &c., London, 1852.

  Hügel, Baron Charles, Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab, translated by Maj. T. B. Jervis, London, 1845.

  The Indian Mutiny, to the Evacuation of Lucknow: To which is Added, a Narrative of the Defence of Lucknow, and a Memoir of General Havelock, compiled by the Former Editor of the Delhi Gazette, London, 1858.

  Jacquemont, Victor, Letters from India (1829–32) (two volumes), translated by Catherine Phillips, London, 1936.

  Jennings, Louis J. (ed.), The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, Cambridge, 2012.

  Khan, Syed Ghulam Hussain, Seir Mutaqherin or Review of Modern Times (four volumes), Calcutta, 1790.

  The Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861, Vol. 2: 1844–1853, edited by Ar
thur C. Benson and Viscount Esher, London, 1908.

  Login, Lady, Lady Login’s Recollections: Court Life and Camp Life 1820–1904, London, 1917.

  —, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, London, 1890.

  Malleson, George Bruce, History of Afghanistan from the Earliest Period to the Outbreak of War of 1878, London, 1879.

  Manucci, Niccolao, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India (four volumes), translated by William Irvine, London, 1907.

  Marshman, John Clark, The History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of Lord Dalhousie’s Administration (three volumes, original edition 1863–7), full text available online www.ibiblio.org.

  The North American Miscellany, Vol. 2, Boston, 1851 (Volume 939 of American Periodical Series 1800–1850).

  Orta, Garcia da, Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India, translated by Clements Markham, London, 1913.

  Osborne, W. G. The Court and Camp of Runjeet Sing, London, 1840.

  Papers Relating to the Punjab 1847–9, London, 1849.

  Parkes, Fanny, Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, London, 1850.

  Polier, Antoine, Shah Alam II and his Court, Calcutta, 1947.

  Prinsep, Henry Thoby, History of the Punjab, and of the Rise, Progress and Present Condition, of the Sect and Nation of the Sikhs [based in part on the ‘Origin of the Sikh Power in the Punjab and Political Life of Muha-Raja Ranjeet Singh’], London, 1846.

  Records of the Ludhiana Agency, Lahore, 1911.

  Roset, Hipponox, Jewellery and Precious Stones … Including Particularly a Consideration of the Koh-i-Noor’s Claim to Notoriety, Philadelphia, 1856.

  Singh, Bhai Nahar, and Kirpal Singh (eds), History of the Koh-i-Noor, Darya-i-Noor and Taimur’s Ruby, New Delhi, no date.

  Sleeman, Major General Sir W. H., Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, Oxford, 1915.

  Smith, Reginald Bosworth, Life of Lord Lawrence, London, 1912.

  Smyth, George Monro Carmichael, A History of the reigning family of Lahore, with some account of the Jummoo rajahs, the Seik soldiers and their sirdars, Calcutta, 1847.

  Soltykoff, Prince Alexis, Voyages dans l’Inde, Paris, 1858.

  Tagore, Raja Sourindro Mohum, Mani-masa or A Treatise on Gems, Calcutta, 1881.