Plot summary
Flashman not only encounters Lord Palmerston at Balmoral, but also his old nemesis Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev. He escapes assassination narrowly and journeys to Jhansi in India, where he meets Rani Lakshmi Bai, the beautiful queen. He listens to her grievances against the British Raj and attempts to seduce her. Whether or not he is successful is unclear, but immediately afterwards Flashman is nearly garroted by Thuggees. In disguise as Makarram Khan, a Hasanzai of the Black Mountain, he takes refuge in the native cavalry at Meerut. Meerut is where the Sepoy Mutiny begins.
Flashman survives the Siege of Cawnpore and the Siege of Lucknow but ends up imprisoned in Gwalior after an attempt to deliver Lakshmi into British hands. He is released just in time to witness the death of Lakshmi, but then his appearance after two months in prison leads to his misidentification as a mutineer. After being knocked out during the British attack on the Rani's camp, he awakens to something that makes Hugh Rose later wonder that Flashman did not lose his mind - he is gagged and tied to the muzzle of a cannon, about to be executed with other mutineers. Quick thinking allows him to communicate with gestures his true ethnicity to his British captors. In an uncharacteristically humane act, he orders the Indian mutineers who were going to be blown away alongside him, to be freed saying "the way things are hereabouts, one of 'em's probably Lord Canning." In this book Flashman often behaves heroically, though his interior thoughts are often - but not always - those of a coward and a cad.
Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character created by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896) in the semi-autobiographical Tom Brown's School Days (1857) and later developed by George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008). Harry Flashman appears in a series of 12 of Fraser's books, collectively known as The Flashman Papers, with covers illustrated by Arthur Barbosa and Gino D’Achille. Flashman was played by Malcolm McDowell in the Richard Lester 1975 film Royal Flash.
Lakshmibai Newalkar, the Rani of Jhansi or Jhansi ki Rani widely known as Rani Lakshmibai
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
Nana Saheb Peshwa II, born as Dhondu Pant, was an Indian aristocrat and fighter, who led the rebellion in Cawnpore (Kanpur) during the 1857 rebellion against the East India Company. As the adopted son of the exiled Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao II, Nana Saheb believed that he was entitled to a pension from the company, but as he was denied recognition under Lord Dalhousie's doctrine of lapse, he initiated a rebellion. He forced the British garrison in Kanpur to surrender, then murdered the survivors, gaining control of the city for a few days. After a British force recaptured Kanpur, Nana Saheb disappeared, with multiple conflicting accounts existing of his further life and death.
Events in the year 1857 in India.
Jhansi is a historic city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Balwant Nagar was the old name of Jhansi. It lies in the region of Bundelkhand, on the banks of the Pahuj River, in the extreme south of Uttar Pradesh. Jhansi is the administrative headquarters of Jhansi district and Jhansi division. Also called the Gateway to Bundelkhand, Jhansi is situated near and around the rivers Pahuj and Betwa at an average elevation of 285 m (935 ft). It is about 420 kilometres (261 mi) from national capital New Delhi and 315 kilometres (196 mi) from state capital Lucknow.
The Siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defence of the British Residency within the city of Lucknow from rebel sepoys during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After two successive relief attempts had reached the city, the defenders and civilians were evacuated from the Residency, which was then abandoned.
The siege of Cawnpore was a key episode in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The besieged East India Company forces and civilians in Cawnpore were duped into a false assurance of a safe passage to Allahabad by the rebel forces under Nana Sahib. Their evacuation from Cawnpore thus turned into a massacre, and most of the men were killed and women and children taken to a nearby dwelling known as Bibi Ghar. As an East India Company rescue force from Allahabad approached Cawnpore, 120 British women and children captured by the rebels were butchered in what came to be known as the Bibi Ghar massacre, their remains then thrown down a nearby well. Following the recapture of Cawnpore and the discovery of the massacre, the angry Company forces engaged in widespread retaliation against captured rebel soldiers and local civilians. The murders greatly enraged the British rank-and-file against the sepoy rebels and inspired the war cry "Remember Cawnpore!".
James George Smith Neill was a British military officer of the East India Company, who served during the Indian rebellion of 1857.
The Siege of Delhi was one of the decisive conflicts of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The rebellion against the authority of the East India Company was widespread through much of Northern India, but essentially it was sparked by the mass uprising by the sepoys of the Bengal Army, which the company had itself raised in its Bengal Presidency. Seeking a symbol around which to rally, the first sepoys to rebel sought to reinstate the power of the Mughal Empire, which had ruled much of the Indian subcontinent in the previous centuries. Lacking overall direction, many who subsequently rebelled also flocked to Delhi.
The Central India Campaign was one of the last series of actions in the Indian rebellion of 1857. The British Army and Bombay Army overcame a disunited collection of states in a single rapid campaign, although determined rebels continued a guerrilla campaign until the spring of 1859.
Sikandar Bagh, formerly known by the British as Sikunder/Sikandra/Secundra Bagh, is a villa and garden enclosed by a fortified wall, with loopholes, gateway and corner bastions, approx. 150 yards square, c. 4.5 acres (1.8 ha), located in the city of Lucknow, Oudh, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was built by the last Nawab of Oudh, Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887), as a summer residence. The name of the villa signifies '"Garden of Sikandar", after Sikandar Mahal Begum, the Nawab's favourite wife. It was stormed in 1857 by the British during the Indian Rebellion and witnessed within its walls the slaughter of all 2,200 sepoy mutineers who had made it a stronghold during their Siege of Lucknow. The site now houses the National Botanical Research Institute of India.
The Battle of Agra was a comparatively minor but nevertheless decisive action at the end of a prolonged siege during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Ek Veer Stree Ki Kahaani – Jhansi Ki Rani is an Indian historical drama based on the life of Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi. The series was directed by Jitendra Srivastava and written by Rajesh Saksham, Ila Dutta Bedi, Malavika Asthana, Mairaj Zaidi and Virendra Singh Patyal. It premiered on 18 August 2009 on Zee TV with Ulka Gupta playing young Queen Lakshmi Bai. On 8 June 2010, the story moved on several years and Kratika Sengar portrayed the Queen from there on. The last episode aired on 19 June 2011, completing 480 episodes.
Sir Hugh Massy Wheeler KCB was an Irish-born officer in the army of the East India Company. He commanded troops in the First Anglo-Afghan War, and the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars, and in 1856 was appointed commander of the garrison at Cawnpore. He is chiefly remembered for the disastrous end to a long and successful military career, when his defence of Wheeler's entrenchment and surrender to Nana Sahib during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 led to the annihilation of almost all the European, Eurasian and Christian Indian population of Cawnpore, himself and several members of his family included.
Jhansi was an independent princely state ruled by the Maratha Newalkar dynasty under suzerainty of British India from 1804 till 1853, when the British authorities took over the state under the terms of the Doctrine of Lapse, and renamed it the Jhansi State. Before the takeover, it was under the Peshwas from 1728 to 1804. The fortified town of Jhansi served as its capital.
The siege of Arrah took place during the Indian Mutiny. It was the eight-day defence of a fortified outbuilding, occupied by a combination of 18 civilians and 50 members of the Bengal Military Police Battalion, against 2,500 to 3,000 mutinying Bengal Native Infantry sepoys from three regiments and an estimated 8,000 men from irregular forces commanded by Kunwar Singh, the local zamindar or chieftain who controlled the Jagdishpur estate.
Lieutenant-General Sir Archdale Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB was a British Bengal Army and British Army artillery officer who saw service during the Second Sikh War and the Indian Rebellion of 1857, during which he was commended for his part in the capture of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow. For his actions during the rebellion, Wilson was knighted and created a baronet. He later returned to the United Kingdom, where he became a Colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery.
Damodar Rao was the adopted son of Maharaja Gangadhar Rao and Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi State.
Tantia Tope was a notable commander in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
