MAHARAJA Duleep Singh, who was tragically enough" more sinned against than sinning", was, as a 11-year-old prince, made to sign the Second Treaty of Lahore in 1849 with Lord Dalhousie which took away from him not only the priceless Koh-i-Noor but also the right even to choose his residence in India.

With the signing of the humiliating treaty in March 1849, the young Maharaja was allowed to live in Lahore only for eight months. Lord Dalhousie’s stay at Lahore for a fortnight in December 1849, paved the way for the externment of the Maharaja from Punjab. The Maharaja was virtually taken a prisoner in Fatehgarh cantonment in Farukhabad district of the then United Provinces in February, 1850. The Maharaja was already in the care of Dr John Login and Mr Barrow whose job (apart from giving a working knowledge of English) was perhaps also to prepare the psyche of the young prince to move to England. The Maharaja’s occasional visits to Mussoorie introduced him to the glamourous aspects of European life. So nicely was the Maharaja brainwashed that he succumbed to the idea of adopting the Christian faith. With the permission of Lord Dalhousie, the Maharaja was baptised on March 8, 1853, without any "ceremonial display" by a clergyman of the Church of England at Fatehgarh.

This paved the way for Lord Dalhousie’s future plans of sending the prince into exile. In March 1854, the Maharaja set sail for England from Calcutta. He spent a few days in Egypt. In Cairo, the Pashas’ carriages and equipage were placed at his disposal. He was also given a rousing reception at Malta. Although he did not land at Gibraltar, a royal salute was fired in his honour. He reached Southampton in May 1854, and thus began the English chapter in his life which was to last nearly four decades.

On the arrival of the Maharaja in London, he was lodged at Claridge’s Hotel and treated with the distinction accorded to persons of exalted status. He was personally welcomed by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort in private audience, and received visits from persons of distinction in the country. A house was taken over for him at Wimbledon by the East India Company, and afterwards at Roehampton, where he resided for three years, and made friends with several families in the neighbourhood.

Teachers were engaged for his instruction in elementary studies. He wished to prepare for the university but to his great disappointment he was not permitted to do so. However, at Court festivals he was an honoured guest and on more than one occasion he was seated near Her Majesty Queen Victoria in the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament.

Bored with his life at Roehampton, the Maharaja expressed his desire to return to India before the time originally fixed. The Board of Directors of the East India Company suggested a tour of the Continent before his return and he was taken to France and Italy by Sir John and Lady Login. The former had received the honour of Knighthood from Her Majesty for making the Maharaja an English Sahib.

On their return to England, Sir John Login took over Castle Menzies in Perthshire for the Maharajah, where he was initiated into the sport of grouse-shooting, of which he became passionately fond. The Roehampton establishment was also kept for him.

In December 1857, the Maharaja, who had then attained the age of nineteen, asked to be treated as of age to manage his household. This request was, after some discussion, admitted by the Court of Directors, who had earlier promised to remove all restrictions with regard to the Maharaja's place of residence. At a later date, the India Office, on the representation of Sir John Login, increased the allowance of the Maharaja to £ 15000 per annum. Out of this allowance, the Maharaja took on lease Mulgrave Castle, Yorkshire, and went to reside there in 1858. At Mulgrave Castle, the Maharaja led an enjoyable life and delighted himself with English country amusements and sports.

In November 1858 came the Queen’s proclamation to the people of India, announcing that she had assumed the government of India.The Maharajah was now free to visit India. He proposed to meet his mother. She had escaped from Benares to Nepal, but was now permitted to meet her son.

In 1859, the mother and son met in Calcutta for the first time since their separation in 1849. It was a highly emotional meeting. The mother had suffered much, and was of frail health.

Notwithstanding her infirmities, the British government did not allow the Rajmata to remain in India. Her private property, consisting chiefly of jewellery, was in their hands, and they refused to restore it unless she chose a place out of India for her residence. They suggested Ceylon. Under these circumstances, the Maharaja persuaded his mother to accompany him to England. She consented, and she resided in Kensington till her death in 1864.

As per her last wish, the Maharaja brought his mother’s remains to India. After immersing the ashes in the Godawari, he returned to England but not alone. In Egypt, he met an accomplished lady who ultimately became his wife. They had met at a missionary school, and were married at Alexandria on June 12, 1864. Maharani Bamba was the daughter of German businessman Ludwig Muller, the head of a large mercantile firm at Alexandria, and partner of Richard Rathbone of Liverpool.

On the Maharajah’ arrival in England with his bride, they were received by her Majesty. They became part of the elite crowd, both in London and in Elveden Estate Suffolk, and had six children — Victor Albert Jay, Frederick Victor, Albert Edward Alexander, Bamba Sofia Jindan, Catherine Hilda and Sophia Alexandra.

Settling now in Elveden Hall, Suffolk, the Maharaja remodelled it into an oriental palace. Engaging himself in a life of English aristocracy, he became the fourth-best shot in England and built the 17,000- acre estate into one of the best hunting beats in the country.

Due to high maintenance costs, Elveden proved a white elephant to maintain. Courts began to send him warning letters. His only response was to forward these to the India Office, together with copies to the Queen. The Queen forgave him everything, but the bank did not. Eventually, in 1878, an arrangement was made whereby his debts were cleared, on condition that Elveden would be sold on his death to repay the loan and to provide pension to his family.

"The Sikh and the Christian inside him were struggling for ascendancy" comments biographer Anne de Courcey. "Gradually, he began to realise what he had lost all those years ago." There followed years of protest, first in the form of letters to the Queen, whom he thought might help him. He hobnobbed with Irish nationalists, agents of the Russian Tsar and Bismarck’s men in Prussia (Germany) to regain a foothold in his original homeland. The fire was fanned when, in 1886, the Maharaja became a Sikh again. By now he was signing his letters as ‘Implacable Foe of the British Government’.

Bamba unfortunately died in 1887, and two years after her death the Maharajah married again — this time to Ada Wetherill, the 20-years-old daughter of a London gas-fitter by whom he had two daughters.

Just six years after his second marriage, Duleep Singh himself died of a seizure in Paris in 1893. In spite of having re-embraced Sikhism, his body was buried in the church contiguous to the Elveden Estate where earlier Princess Bamba was buried in 1887. Among the numerous graves in the churchyard stand the tablets announcing the burial of the Maharaja Duleep Singh, his first wife and a son.

In Thetford today, there is a sad reminder of the Maharaja’s association with the town by way of a museum accommodated in a house which was purchased built by his second son Frederick Victor to commemorate his father. It is a small unassuming building near the town centre built in the 15th century where a few items of memorabilia associated with the Maharaja's’ life are exhibited in a room. The glass shelf which encases some of the photographs and the family scrapbook are not for public viewing.

A few hundred yards from the museum is the park where a black statue of Maharaja Duleep Singh on horseback stands desolately. It was unveiled by Prince Charles early last year. But the Elveden estate where the Maharaja spent his 40 years is now the property of Lord Iveah, and a curious onlooker trying to proceed towards the Hall is greeted with the sign "Private Property — No Thoroughfare".