DHULEEP SINGH—AND FIFTY YEARS AFTER.
WE must pass back to the fifties to introduce a personage who figures
conspicuously in the sixties and seventies, both in comedy and tragedy,
and then shuffled off this mortal coil and has long since been forgotten.
It was in ’56 when England had annexed Oude, that the ex-Queen and a
considerable retinue arrived in London to “protest”—a process that must
have enlightened, if it did not benefit, them in the ways of Imperial
Policy.
Half-a-dozen houses in Marylebone Road were secured as a temporary
palace, and it was thither, as a lad, that I accompanied my father, who
had once held high office in the Punjaub.
The exact spot was where the Baker Street station now stands, and as one
is nothing unless one is accurate, conceive entering the present dismal
premises and finding in the “reception room” two or three beds, in one of
which was the Queen; about the floor various courtiers were littered,
whilst the atmosphere was so sour that one felt thankful the old woman’s
reign had been cut short, and that henceforth sanitary arrangements, a
tub, and other adjuncts of Christianity would prevail in Oude after the
family had realised that “No mistakes were rectified after leaving the
counter,” and that “Don’t you wish you may get it?” embodied our
beneficent policy in the abstract.
Baker Street at the time swarmed with Mohammedans, for, by a coincidence,
Lord Panmure, the Earl of Dalhousie, and Sir John Lawrence—all more or
less associated with India—had houses in that then fashionable
neighbourhood, and so enabled the “protesters” to combine business with
pleasure at comparatively slight physical inconvenience.
Dhuleep Singh, another reputed Punjaubee, had also at this time been
brought to England, and, although then pursuing the ordinary course of a
schoolboy under General Oliphant, it was only later, as a Norfolk
landlord, a masher, a burlesque conspirator, and the owner of the finest
emeralds in the world, that he came into prominence.
It is in these latter roles that we purpose to interest our readers.
During the minority of this most fortunate Asiatic the savings out of his
annuity of £40,000 a year had amounted to a colossal sum, and so Dhuleep
Singh first comes into prominence, on attaining his majority, as a
Norfolk squire and the owner of Elvedon Hall.
An excellent shot, it was some few years later that he made the
sportsmanlike wager with Lord Sefton to slaughter a thousand head of game
within a day. Rabbits were included in the bet, and impossible as such a
feat may appear, the tameness of the pheasants in the over-stocked home
preserves made it quite feasible. For some reason, however, it never
came off.
At this period the Maharajah was in high favour at Court; his children,
after his marriage with the unpretentious little lady he wooed and won at
Singapore, were permitted to play with British Royal sprigs, and the
Heir-apparent invariably had a week’s shooting with his dusky neighbour
and a suitably selected party in the autumn.
But despite the glamour these reunions may be supposed to have spread
over him Dhuleep Singh had ever an eye to business, and a contract was
made with Baily, the poulterer in Mount Street, for a shilling a head all
round for all surplus hares, rabbits, pheasants, and what-not slaughtered
at Elvedon Hall.
The Maharajah’s behaviour meanwhile was all that was desirable. At Court
functions he was resplendent in emeralds and diamonds, and the slab, six
inches by four, on his swordbelt was said to be the finest emerald in the
world.
The jewellers to whom was deputed the task of cutting, setting, and
otherwise improving the barbaric gems of the youthful prince are said to
trace their present Bond Street position to this fortunate selection.
It was only when his Highness assumed evening dress that visions of
Mooltan, Chilianwallah, and Goojerat faded from one’s brain, and a podgy
little Hindoo seemed to stand before one, divested of that physique and
martial bearing one associates with either warriors or Sikhs, and only
requiring, as it were, a chutnee-pot peeping out of his pocket to
complete the illusion.
During the sixties and seventies Dhuleep Singh was in evidence
everywhere. An excellent whist player amongst such admitted champions as
Goldingham, Dupplin, “Cavendish” (on whist), and others, he was to be
found every afternoon at the Marlborough, or East India, or Whist Club
backing his opinion, and damning his partner if he ignored his “call for
trumps;” whilst every evening found him at the Alhambra graciously
accepting the homage of the houris in the green-room, and distributing
9-carat gimcracks with Oriental lavishness.
During this period apparently the Punjaub occupied only a secondary
position in his mind, and we next find him occupying a spacious flat in
King Street, Covent Garden, and it was there, doubtless, that visions of
charging at the head of the splendid horsemen of the Punjaub and the
wresting of India from British rule first entered his romantic brain; for
the Maharajah was a poet, though happily none of his effusions appear to
have been preserved. He may also have recollected that the Koh-i-noor
was once a crown jewel of Runjeet Singh, and his Highness was
passionately found of baubles.
Often have I seen him of an evening pacing to and fro outside the “Shirt
Shop” (as the Whist Club was affectionately called) maturing those
foolish plans that deprived him of his income for a while and led him
into straits that it is painful to realise. Occasionally, indeed, he
would rave at the injustice of the beggarly income the Government of
India accorded him, and then it was he conceived the brilliant idea of
coquetting with Russia for the simultaneous rising of the Punjaub and a
Russian invasion of India.
Not that one Sikh would have stirred at his call, and his proclamation
fizzed and went out like any squib at a Brock benefit. Added to this,
Russia rucked on him and his Highness fell into disgrace.
But still his vanity led him on, and he essayed to start for India, and
shipped as Pat Casey, though why Pat, and what part of Ireland Casey
hailed from will ever remain an unfathomable mystery.
The hero, however, never got beyond Aden, where he was politely invited
to retrace his steps. The “last phase” was as brief as it was
lamentable. Settling in Paris he again married. Then poverty
necessitated the sale of his jewels, sickness overtook him, and, broken
in body and mind, he asked and received pardon for his many foolish acts.
After his escapades in Paris he is said to have written to the British
Government, “_Capivi_,” evidently intending to reiterate the cypher
telegram attributed to Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Scinde,
“_Peccavi_” (a mot that will appeal to all classical readers). Thereupon
he was forgiven, and shortly after he died, and so the race of the “Lion
of the Punjaub” went out like a lamb.
What became of the second wife I never heard, what became of the Alhambra
lass and the dusky tadpoles that drove about the King’s Road at Brighton
history does not tell, for “Love is a queer thing, it comes and it goes,”
and all that remains to the present generation is the nebulous tale of a
misguided man who kicked down wealth, position, and a happy old age in
the reckless pursuit of a silly ambition.
FIFTY YEARS AFTER.
I cannot permit this opportunity to pass without reminding every reader
of the momentous issues that were for ever set at rest by the incredible
heroism of our army during the Mutiny in September fifty years ago, and
without encroaching on the beautiful story by W. H. Fitchett, within the
reach of everybody for 4½d., one may legitimately ask why many incidents
that then occurred have never been explained.
What is the _true_ version of the “_Stone_ Bridge” being left _open_ at
Lucknow?
Why is it invariably confused with the “_Iron_ Bridge?”
What was the _true_ reason of the Cawnpore reverse?
No history yet written has ever explained these points, which, however
justifiable at the time, may surely, after fifty years, have light thrown
upon them, and if Lord Roberts would give his version, many—including the
old brigade—would have their curiosity set at rest.
And touching those glorious days, what return has a grateful (!) country
made to the remnant that remains? An invitation to a levée and a
sandwich and a photographed group afterwards! A 5th Class Victorian
Order would have left nothing to be desired. For my part if I pass a
drummer boy of the brave 93rd I feel an irresistible inclination to raise
my hat in homage to a successor of those invincible Highlanders. And
then the irony of it! MacBean, the adjutant who passed through those
continuous hurricanes of shot and shell without a scratch, died of
lock-jaw, when in command of the regiment some twenty years after, from
cutting a corn.
Every patriot will forgive a digression on the day (December 6th) these
lines are being written, for it is a landmark in the annals of the Army
as recording the _last_ occasion (fifty years ago) that British infantry
advanced in line in old Peninsular formation—in slow time—halting
periodically and dressing on their coverers as we see on a Hyde Park
parade, under a terrific fire of shot and shrapnel, and then, breaking
into the old-fashioned charge, the irresistible cheer, and cold steel as
a climax.
For on that decisive day the Gwalior contingent, 80,000 strong,
splendidly drilled, the flower of the Sepoy Army, was shattered by Colin
Campbell and his handful of 3,400 men, and the neck of the great Mutiny
was broken.
No man living to-day who heard that crumpling sound and that avenging
cheer can ever—will ever—forget it, and it behoves you, my masters, to
remember, when you see the red and white-striped ribbon on the mendicant
selling matches, or his more fortunate comrade patrolling outside a shop
door, that in the words of Colin Campbell: “Every man of them that day
was worth his weight in gold to England.”
And here one is reminded of a German prejudice of the Dowager Queen
Adelaide (whom we all prayed for in our youth), who at levées and Court
functions insisted on kilted officers appearing in “trews”—the absence of
the “breeks” being too shockingly shocking.
And whilst on this subject I am reminded, by the recent death of George
FitzGeorge at Lucerne, of many incidents more or less military.
At Gibraltar as late as ’65 was a sentry posted on a promontory that
originally commanded a view of the Straits—but which a high wall had
subsequently obliterated—whose orders were “To keep a sharp look out and
immediately to report if the Spanish fleet was in sight.”
The Governor at the time was Sir Richard Airey, the most courteous of the
old English school of gentlemen, but probably the worst
Quartermaster-General that ever permitted boots and blankets to
accumulate at Balaclava and brave men to freeze and starve at the front.
It was an inspiration of his to utilise the stores with which Gibraltar
is permanently provisioned by a periodical issue of salt pork rations
that had accumulated since the Crimean War. Needless to add, much was
mouldy, and many the complaints, and on one occasion when a vehement
report reached him, he replied: “Leave it here, it shall be seen to.”
Not long after invitations were issued for a dinner at the Convent, to
which the “Board” on the rotten pork were invited.
The banquet was the finest a French cook could produce, and one dish with
“_Sauce Robert_” especially appreciated.
“That, gentlemen, is your rotten pork, and shows you how some men are
never satisfied,” was his Excellency’s appropriate (!) comment. But
there is not a _cordon bleu_ in every regimental cook-house.