The English influence is palpable in the leather boots of the heir apparent. The younger prince and the attendant are in wide rehmani shalwars typical of the nineteenth century.

I'm editing the book....again!!....and have just finished with the bit about the death of the princes

I believe the Princes were murdered?

Indian Rebellion At the outset of the Indian Mutiny he made his name by riding with despatches from General Anson from Karnal to Meerut and back again, a distance of 152 miles in seventy-two hours, through country full of hostile cavalry. Following this feat, the commander-in-chief empowered him to raise and command a new regiment of 2000 irregular horse, which became famed as "Hodson's Horse", and placed him at the head of the Intelligence Department. In his double role of cavalry leader and intelligence officer, Hodson played a large part in the reduction of Delhi. His major achievement was the capture of the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah II and the execution of the three Mughal princes: Bahadur's sons Mirza Mughal and Mirza Khizr Sultan and his grandson Mirza Abu Bakr. The British knew that the old Emperor (or "King of Delhi") was proving to be a focus for the uprising and the mutineers, and that he, his sons and their army were camped just outside Delhi at Humayun's Tomb. The General in command said he could not spare a single European. Hodson volunteered to go with 50 of his irregular horsemen, this request was turned down but after some persuasion Hodson obtained from General Wilson permission to ride out to where the enemy were encamped. Hodson rode 6 miles through enemy territory into their camp, containing some 6000+ armed mutineers, who are said to have laid their arms to grounds when he ordered them to. This was highly symbolic of the decline of the Turks and Mughals which started after Aurangzeb> Here he accepted the surrender of Bahadur Shah II, the last of the Moghul Emperors of India, promising him that his life would be spared.[4] The capture of the Emperor in the face of a threatening crowd dealt the mutineers a heavy blow. As a sign of surrender the Emperor handed over his arms, which included two magnificent swords, one with the name ‘Nadir Shah’ and the other with the seal of Jahangir engraved upon it, which Hodson intended to present to Queen Victoria.[5] The swords he took from the Emperor were given to the Queen as a symbol of the Emperor's surrender and are still held in the Queen's Collection. The sons of the king, the princes had refused to surrender and on the following day with few horsemen Hodson went back and demanded the princes' unconditional surrender. Again a crowd of thousands of mutineers gathered, and Hodson ordered them to disarm, which they did. He sent the princes on with an escort of ten men, while with the remaining ninety he collected the arms of the crowd.[citation needed] On going after the princes, Hodson found the crowd was again pressing towards the escort. The princes were mounted on a bullock-cart and driven towards the city of Delhi. As they approached the city gate, Hodson ordered the three princes to get off the cart and to strip naked. He then shot them dead before stripping the princes of their signet rings, turquoise arm-bands and bejewelled swords. Their bodies were thrown in front of a kotwali, or police-station, and left there to be seen by all. The gate near where they were killed is called the Khooni Darwaza, or Bloody Gate. - Wiki

Hodson's account was, it seems, a tissue of lies.

Lynne : What could have been the real version ?

Lynne its not the Indian version but also the british version. Hodson was made the scape goat latter by England that does not wash thier hands of the genocide that was carried out by the Imperial East India Company

A sneak preview from our book follows: A parliamentary enquiry was held, during which Hodson defended his actions on the grounds that he was surrounded by an unruly mob bent on killing he and his escort. ‘I came up just in time, as a large mob had collected’, he claimed: and were turning on the guard. I rode in amongst them at a gallop, and in a few words I appealed to the crowd, saying that these were the butchers who had murdered and brutally used helpless women and children, and that the government had now sent their punishment: seizing a carbine from one of my men I deliberately shot them one after the other...the bodies were taken into the city, and thrown out on to the Chiboutra in front of the Kotwalie... I intended to have them hung, but when it came to a question of ‘They’or ‘Us’, I had no time for deliberation. This is at odds with Griffith’s version of events, in that whilst Hodson claimed to have ‘appealed to the crowd’ and shot the princes with a carbine, Griffith clearly states that he addressed his men and shot the princes with a ‘Colt’s revolver’. In addition to this, whilst Hodson claimed to have acted on the spur of the moment, it would appear that the fate of the Princes had been decided in advance of their capture. ‘Hodson's orders were precise as to the fate of these blood-thirsty ruffians’, wrote Griffith, ‘and though his name has been vilified and his reputation tarnished by so-called humanitarians for the course he adopted in ridding the world of the miscreants, he was upheld in the deed by the whole Delhi army, men in every respect better qualified to form a judgement in this particular than the sentimental beings at home who denounced with horror this perfectly justifiable act of speedy and condign punishment.’

Thank you Lynne ! Looking forward to present your book on RBSI soon.

My pleasure, and it shoulldn't be long now...providing I can finally finish editing it!! :))

I guess William Dalrymple should be a worried man now ! : )

No, Willie's not worried!! :)) I wish he were...he's a good writer, and I'd love to think that he felt threatened by something I wrote!! :))

Anyone related to good old Rory McEwen would definitely pose a genuine threat...in my opinion ! : )

Thank you....that's the nicest compliment I've ever had. :)) Rory certainly was a fabulous wordsmith. :)) I like to think that with him and Mark Twain in the fmily tree, I may have inherited a bit of the writer's magic!! :))

family, too!! My computer hasn't learnt to spell!!

looking forward to that lynne !!! all the best !! godbless !!

by the way , did you get your hands on attrocities of east india company !!????

The trial held of the emperor was a kangaroo court and I would like to believe the same about Hodson's trial as well. The ramifications of the destruction of Mughal / Muslim nobility in north India led to the formation of the Dar-ul- uloom and the Deoband .The eventual fallout of it was the partition of my country on religious lines. This in turn led to the exodus of educated middle class Muslims from India en masse as they got ready jobs in Pakistan and we were left with largely the Muslim landed gentry ,nawabs and absolute low class Muslims. Middle class is the slowest to get created in any society and that is where culture is alive and thrives. The very high and the very low have no morals. The former out of sheer boredom and the latter out of sheer necessity. India's biggest misfortune is that the Muslims coming up now have next to no role models left in their community. This bane is decidedly a British legacy. The EIC and the English dealt the severest blow to the future of this nation that far back which nobody even cares to notice. Forget the jewels that they plundered or the world's grandest palace inside the Red Fort which they brought down and of which only a shadow now remains. Nobody can even imagine the wealth and grandeur of the Mughal nobility (largely Muslim but also Hindu) when the Mughals themselves were the epitome of majesty and grandeur on the planet ,the likes of which the world has seldom seen. Hyderabad in the Deccan was merely a shadow of Mughal brilliance. It is a catastrophe of gargantuan proportions that we are condemned to live with for another hundred years at least. But for India having become a centre of Sufi activity over the last millennium in such a great measure, the radicalization of Muslims was a distinct possibility. Our other great blessing was the formation of the Aligarh Muslim University and the progressive movement led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Thanks only to the spirit of tolerance propagated by the Sufis and the scientific temperament encouraged by the AMU that Indian Muslims even today in repeated surveys emerge as the world's most liberal. The British had however made excellent arrangement for our eventual ruin.

Digbhai.. lovely explaination.. upto the mark..

Dgvijay, great comment!

Truth in every word you have said, Digvijay. What a heritage and richness we lost? sad indeed

DSK: what is that weighing scale type seal on the wall, just above bahadur shah? is that some type of royal seal of mughul or something else?

@Mudit: I am not really aware but it may signify the terazoo (scales) of adl-o-insaaf (justice).

Many thanks to all for liking the comment and even taking time out to scribble a line of appreciation too. The brain drain of educated Muslims from India is a loss which will take our country ,God only knows how , many more generations to recoup.