CHAPTER I.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUDH BEFORE THE
ANNEXATION.
1. To enable the reader to form some idea of the state of affairs in Oudh before that eventful period in the annals of British India, known to all History as the revolt of the sepoy army in 1857,[1] it will be necessary to give, by way of introduction to my narrative, the following particulars, taken from reliable sources, of a few Kings of Oudh, whose misrule, having become a public scandal and a reproach to the Paramount Power, resulted in the annexation of the Province by the East India Company in February 1856.
2. The founder of the Oudh dynasty which has become extinct by the ex-King’s death at Garden Reach, Calcutta, on the 21st September 1887, in his sixty-eighth year, was Saadat Khan, a Persian, who, coming as a merchant from Naishapur, in Khorasan, attained to high power and influence at Delhi, and received the appointment of Subadar (Governor) of Oudh from the Emperor, Muhammad Shah, of Delhi, in 1732, a position which he retained until his death in 1739. The capital remained at Fyzabad till 1775, when Asuf-ud-daulah removed it to Lucknow, and the rulers retained the title of Nawab Vizier, or Chief Minister of the Empire.
3. Gazi-ud-din Haidar was the first person to obtain the title of King in 1819. It was during his reign that Lucknow was visited by Bishop Heber in 1824. It then possessed a considerable population, crowded together in mean houses of clay, traversed by lanes of the filthiest description, and so narrow, that even a single elephant did not pass easily. “The principal street was of commanding
- ↑ By the year 1857, exactly a hundred year had passed since Clive had won the battle of Plassey (23rd June 1757,) and thus laid the foundation of the British Empire in India. The centenary of the foundation of this Empire, instead of being kept as a time of general rejoicing, was fraught with one of the greatest calamities that ever befell the English nation.
“The mutiny,” writes Lord Roberts, “was not an unmitigated evil; for to it we owe the consolidation of our power in India, as it hastened on the construction of roads, railways, and telegraphs so wisely and thoughtfully planned by the Marquis of Dalhousie, and which have done more than anything to increase the prosperity of the people and preserve order throughout the country."
