November 23, 2015 • 24 mins
A princess of the Sikh empire, Sophia Duleep Singh grew up in Great Britain, and was Queen Victoria's god daughter. But her childhood was not exactly a charmed one, and her family, caught between two worlds, experienced great upheaval and tragedy.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast Tracy
Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. The subject of today's podcast
has been requested by a couple of different listeners. One
(00:21):
was Lackbreit, who wrote back in March, and another is Christopher,
who wrote in after promotions for the movie Suffragette raised
some controversy about the film's treatment of race, and I
want to be very clear, I have not seen seen Suffragette.
I cannot personally comment on how the film treated race.
But the thing that people were criticizing stem from the
(00:42):
fact that basically everybody in the movie is white, which
is simultaneously woefully inaccurate and sadly true. It number one,
people of color, particularly women of color, were definitely part
of the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, but at
the same time, that same movement a lot of times
(01:03):
was focused on the needs of white women, sometimes specifically,
to the exclusion of everyone else, and that is true
also in the United States suffrage movement. It's not something
that was unique to Britain. So that brings us to
today's subject. So Fia du leep Singh She was an
Indian princess whose father was the last Maharajah of the
(01:24):
Sikh Empire in what's now India and Pakistan. Queen Victoria
was her godmother. I've learned Queen Victoria had quite a
lot of god children, oh Vicky, so Fire was one
of so many. Uh So she became a very vocal presence,
a very vocal presence and the women's suffrage movement in
Britain and Princess Sofia's background and her upbringing had a
(01:48):
really huge influence on how she came to be part
of the movement and just generally how her life played out.
And her story doesn't make a whole lot of sense
without knowing a bit about her father and her grandfather.
So we're gonna tell her story in two parts. Today
is the Sad Royal childhood installment of this two parter.
If you have missed past hosts focused on Sad Royal childhoods,
(02:10):
that's what we're going to talk about today. Part two
is going to talk about her adult life and how
she started working to help women in Britain get the
right to vote. Sofia de Leippe Singh's grandfather, Runjeet Singh
founded the seek Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century.
He took the city of Lahore in seventeen nine and
then was named in Maharajah in eighteen oh one. Throughout
(02:34):
the nineteenth century, ron Jet sing annexed and conquered territories
that neighbored his own. He was backed by an army
that was made of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu soldiers. A
lot of his conquering and annexing, by all the accounts
that I found, seems to have been pretty welcomed because
the rulers that he ousted were often very corrupt and also,
(02:56):
banding together the neighboring kingdoms made the region as a whole,
say for a more stable Added to this was the
fact that he showed respect and tolerance for the various
religious beliefs and practices that existed within the region, rather
than forcing everyone to convert to the Maharaja's religion, which
as we said, was Sikhism. He even made a point
(03:17):
of marrying Hindu, Sikh and Muslim wives. Apart from all
this expansion of territory, one of the other acquisitions during
this time was the Kohe Neword Diamond. There's a whole
podcast about it in the archive, and he wore this
gem on a piece of jewelry on his arm, defying
the popular belief that this uh stone was in fact cursed.
(03:40):
By the time of Ranjit Singh's death in eighteen thirty nine,
the Sikh Empire was very large and very wealthy. But
without him around to lead this empire, the leaders of
the various factions that he had united started to work
against each other again. And it really didn't help that
one after another his successors were all assass needed. None
(04:01):
of them managed to hold on to their reign for
more than a couple of years. The heir to maintain
control of the empire for the longest period after Ranjeet
Singh's death was his youngest son, du Leip Singh. He
was Sofia du Leip Singh's father. Du Leip's mother, Maharani Jindkar,
was known as jindn She was one of his father's
(04:22):
more recent wives. At the time of his death, she
had refused to participate in the ritual of Sati, in
which Ranjeet's otherwives burned themselves to death on his funeral pyre.
She said that she was more dedicated to Dulip than
his than to his late father. That dedication became extremely
evident when Dulip Singh became the next person in line
(04:42):
of succession in eighteen forty three. His mother acted as
his regent, and her political savvy protected the young Maharaja
for several years. She was able to keep him relatively unharmed,
even as others around him were assassinated an ongoing power
grab that changed with the First Anglo Sikh War, which
(05:04):
was fought between the Seak Empire and the British East
India Company and its allies. The British East India Company
took over what remained of the Seek Empire in eighteen
forty nine, claiming to be acting on the young Maharaj's behalf,
It presented him with a treaty that outlined, among other things,
terms for quote protecting him until he was sixteen. In
(05:25):
the meantime, his mother would still act as regent. Side
note also included in this treaty was surrendering the Collonord
Diamond to the Queen of England, and this British protection
was unfortunately not to be The British East India Company
slowly infiltrated Lahore with its own troops. It banished Duleiep's mother,
(05:45):
who had become vocal about their distrust of them, when
Delip was nine years old. At the age of eleven,
Dulip himself was exiled. He was sent to one of
India's northwestern provinces, away from his supporters, and given to
a Scottish family to tooter. Eventually he converted from Sikhism
to Christianity. At the age of fifteen, Julip Singh asked
(06:07):
if he could visit England to see the Queen, and
Queen Victoria, who had been intensely curious about the boy,
enthusiastically agreed, and once he was in England, do Leiep
Singh became one of Queen Victoria's favorites. The India Office,
which oversaw Britain's rule of the Indian provinces, granted him
an income which was pittance in comparison to the wealth
(06:28):
of the seek Empire, but made him richer than a
lot of British nobility. But even though he had lots
of money and he was clearly doated on by the Queen,
he was still Indian and therefore still viewed his inferior
by much of the British aristocracy. As Duleep got older,
he started very publicly and very enthusiastically carousing around with
(06:48):
Prince Albert, then known as Bertie, who would later become
King Edward the seventh. Naturally, this public carousing became quite
embarrassing to the monarchs, so she started trying to find
a good match for him, hoping that if Julip Sing
got married, he would settle down. She had to do
this while also trying to keep him in the dark
about the realities of British colonial rule in India, which
(07:12):
we have other things on in the archive. To be
very very for a generously brief it was not great. Yeah,
And when Queen Victoria's husband Albert died on December fourteenth
of eighteen sixty one, as his fairly common knowledge, Victoria
lost interest in a lot of things, and that included
(07:32):
dou Leip and his family's situation. Two years later, while
the Queen was still deeply in mourning, Duleep's mother also
died at the age of forty five. It was only
after making his last trip to India to take his
mother's body home and have it cremated according to seek
traditions that he realized that his life in England was
likely to be extremely lonely upon his return, so with
(07:56):
the Queen still otherwise occupied, he took the matter of
his marriage and to his own hands. On the way
back to England, he stopped in Cairo he married the
beautiful and pious Bomba Mueler. This was the illegitimate daughter
of a German merchant and an enslaved woman from Abyssinia,
which today is mostly Ethiopia. Du Leep wrote to Bomba's
(08:17):
father to ask him to grant her legitimacy so that
the whole thing would not be quite so shocking to
the Queen. Then he married her after knowing her for
about four months. Fortunately, once the Queen actually met her,
she liked her as well. The couple moved to Elveden
Estate in Suffolk, which Duleep spent lots of time and
money remodeling. He blended British and Indian influences into this project,
(08:42):
and he added a huge menagerie to the grounds, full
of animals that were to the British landscape quite exotic,
including leopards, cheetah's, monkeys and parrots. This was, as you
can imagine, quite lavish. This remodeling project went on for
thirteen years, which also saw the births all of Sophia's
older siblings. Just as the remodel was complete, it also
(09:05):
saw the birth of Sophia herself. We will talk about
her early life after a brief word from one of
our sponsors, and now we go back to our story.
So Fia Douleep Singh was born on August eight, seventy six.
In addition to being the youngest, uh the youngest of
the Duleep Singh children at the time, there was a
(09:25):
several year gap between her and her brothers and sisters,
who had all been born within one or two year
increments of one another. So how's the baby she was
doated on. Not long after her birth, though, things sort
of started to go south at home. Although her father
had a sizeable income from the India Office, he was
outspending it and significantly so. He also had something of
(09:49):
a gambling problem. Plus he just felt like he was
royalty so he should be able to do what he wanted,
even though he didn't really have an empire anymore. In
spite of the fact that every and I was trying
to keep him in the dark about it. He also
started learning more about British activities in his former home,
as well as about how his mother had been treated
by the British, which was not well. He became increasingly defiant,
(10:14):
and when the Queen's bankers started insisting that he reigned
in his spending, he responded by spending even more. It
took the Queen herself sending him a letter directly before
he begrudgingly approached his life with any sort of adherence
to a budget. In August of eighteen seventy nine, Sophia's
little brother, Albert Edward duleep Singh was born, making Sophia
(10:37):
one of six siblings to survive their infancy. Because they
were so much younger than the older four children, Sofia
and the baby, who was known as Eddie were particularly close.
After Eddie's birth, things continued to get worse around the
duleep sing home. Julippe himself had been having affairs throughout
his marriage, and these became increasingly serious and increasingly public.
(10:58):
He had a number of illegitimate children, and some of
the older ones he gave jobs at the Elveden estate.
This behavior became increasingly upsetting to his wife, and a
huge riff started to develop in the couple's marriage. Finally,
the British government made it clear that it would no
longer tolerate do Leif's excesses. It offered him a one
(11:20):
time payment that would allow him to settle all his
debts in an exchange, it would take control of the
estate at Elveden upon his death. This meant that de
Leppe would basically be broke but not in debt, and
would have no property to leave his children. In desperation,
he wrote to the Queen directly, and in her reply
she suggested that she might be able to help his
(11:41):
children after he was gone, but though when it came
to his own finances, she basically reminded him that he
had been warned. In her words, quote as I once
or twice mentioned to you before. I think you were
thought extravagant and that may have led to a want
of confidence as regards to the future. Oh, you have
to admire her turn of phrase. Yeah, I was just thinking.
(12:02):
I'm glad I never ran a foul of Queen Victoria
needing to tell me and I told you so. Because
this is simultaneously so deft and so putting him down,
but so incredibly polite. Uh, in retaliation for what he
perceived as having been taken advantage of. After all, as
(12:23):
you recall, the seek Empire was worth far more than
the British government had ever given him. De Leepe teamed
up with Army Major Evans Bell to write a tell
all book about the British annexation of his empire, and
there really was quite a bit to tell. However, the
book was really a rush job. It was sloppy, and
it was full of errors, so frankly, it just did
(12:43):
not meet its audience being taken seriously at all, it
definitely was not what do Leep had hoped it would be.
He wanted it to be an injury to the crown
and a rallying cry for fairer treatment of India and
of himself and his family when he was increasingly publicly
speaking out against Britain. But given his reputation by this
(13:04):
point and his demeanor in doing so, people once again
did not take him very seriously. Eventually it came to
the point where he started auctioning off his belongings. He
was shopping for hot weather clothes for his family and
planning to take them back to India. He wrote to
the Queen and informed her that he would be converting
back to Seekism once they arrived there. This was really
(13:25):
the last thing he felt like he could genuinely threaten
Queen Victoria with. She was very devout and one of
the reasons his presence at court had been so acceptable
to her was that he was a Christian. The dou
Leep Singh family made it to the Gulf of Odden,
but couldn't get cleared to go through the Suez Canal,
which would they were going to need to do to
continue the rest of the way to India. Finally, after
(13:47):
something of a stalemate, do they put his family on
a ship and sent them back to England without him.
Do Leep Singh stayed behind, and on May six he
was rebapped tised as a Sikh. When the weather in
Odden didn't agree with him, he got permission from the
British to go anywhere he wished, except India. The government
(14:08):
was afraid that his presence there would rile up anti
colonial sentiment, and so instead he went to France and
he tried to rile up that sentiment there. Meanwhile, Obamba
and the children returned to England, where they had no
home and no income, and wound up being entirely dependent
on Queen Victoria, who had them housed at first in
a hotel. Not long after, de Leipsing posted a public
(14:32):
notice that he relinquished all responsibility for his family and
their well being and their debts, instead started focusing on
raising money and manpower to try to retake his kingdom
from Britain. Queen Victoria was godmother to two of de
Leep's children, both Safia and her brother Victor, and she
felt a moral responsibility to look after the whole family,
(14:54):
So the India Office granted Maherini bamba and income, although
it was of course much smaller than do Leaps had
been the two oldest children, both sons, were both put
into school, and the eldest, Victor, was put into a
military academy. They were hoping to curtail the habits of
gambling and excess that he had picked up from his father.
Victor was expected to enter the British Army as an officer,
(15:17):
which normally was not allowed for foreign princes, but the
fact that he was the Queen's god son allowed for
the exception. At this point, Sofia was eleven, Her mother
had fallen into a deep depression and their nanny, who
had looked after them for much of their earliest years,
had taken another post in the face of the Maharini's behavior,
and this left Sofia and her younger brother mostly unsupervised.
(15:42):
To try to give the household and the younger children
some semblance of stability and order, A man named Arthur
Oliphant was put in charge of them. He wasn't just
appointed their head of household, though he was also supposed
to keep tabs on them and report back to the queen.
He moved them to his home in Kent and started
trying to encourage them into a more refined upbringing. Once
(16:05):
she had instructors in both academics and deportment, Sophia did
indeed progress very rapidly. She was really smart, and she
had a gift for music, and she began to behave
in a way that was closer to what was expected
of a young lady of her station. But unfortunately, than
a series of tragedies plagued her adolescence, and we're going
to talk about those after we have a brief word
(16:28):
from one of our fabulous sponsors. In September, Sophie I
got typhoid, and while she was sick. Her mother lapsed
into a coma and died. She was thirty nine. She
had basically been sitting vigil and then sort of inexplicably
fell ill and died. The Queen gave Sophia's father permission
(16:48):
to come back to Britain for her mother's funeral, but
he chose not to do it, and of course the
children were completely heartbroken at having lost their mother, and afterward,
Oliphant and his wife continued to look after all the
girls and little Eddie, who remember was the youngest. With
a more stable home and dedicated tutors, all of the
(17:09):
children started to learn very quickly. This basically kept them
under the very careful eye of Elephant, who was still
giving reports back to the Queen on their behavior, and
this also enabled their caretakers to try to teach them
to be proper British children, with proper British attitudes and
proper British deference to the Queen. Oliphant and the and
(17:30):
the Queen thought this was especially necessary because both Sophia
and Eddie were old enough to remember their father's increasingly
outspoken anger at Britain. They also could remember their aborted
trip to India. Which had been thwarted by the British
authorities that wouldn't allow them through the Suettes Canal. They were, not, however,
quite old enough to grasp that talking about it, especially
(17:53):
in a way that reflected well on their father and
badly on Britain, would probably not go over well with
the people in show arge of their care. Eventually, it
was decided that the children needed a clean break or
they would never grow up in a way that suited
their station. Sofia and Eddie were sent to Brighton and
the two older sisters, Catherine and Bomba, were sent to university.
(18:15):
With all her older siblings no longer at home, so
Fi became sort of the lynch pen of the family.
She was the one that all of her siblings wrote
to and trusted her to pass on news of the others.
She also looked after her one younger brother. She learned
to play the piano, and she did quite well with it,
and she did gradually take on more of the department
(18:36):
that was expected of her. However, their progress in their
studies was short lived. In eighteen ninety, their father, who
had developed a very serious drinking problem, had a series
of major strokes. He wrote to the Queen to ask
for forgiveness, and he was given permission to come back
to Britain under the condition that he beat unfailingly, unquestioningly
(18:58):
obedient to the monarch. By this point he had remarried,
and the Queen was not willing to extend much hospitality
to Deleep's new wife. In her mind, that was the
woman responsible for turning de Leip away from his family
and away from his Christian faith. In spite of having
gotten permission to return to Britain, there was not much
of a happy reunion for the deleep Singh family. So
(19:20):
Faia's father had a serious heart attack while still in France,
and about the same time, little Eddie got pneumonia that
was complicated by other infections. While de Leip was able
to come to England to see his son, he didn't
stay long because he was afraid his own failing health
would distract the doctors from looking after Eddie. Eddie de
(19:42):
leep Sing died at the age of thirteen in April
of eighteen ninety three. De Leip Sing died just months
later alone in a hotel room on the night of
October twenty two. The staff found him on the floor
the next morning. He was only fifty five at the time.
Against his final wishes, which were to be buried wherever
he died, do Leep Sing's children had his body brought
(20:04):
back to England. He was buried at Eldon Hall alongside
his first wife and his deceased son, the now orphans.
Sofia was understandably distraught. She had just turned seventeen and
in just a few years she had lost her mother,
her father, and her much adored little brother. The nanny,
who had taken another post during her mother's depression, had
(20:26):
also died, literally as the Oliphants were trying to bring
her back to look after them again. The douleep Singh
children had also lost their home, their status, and nearly
all of their wealth. While her surviving brothers had the
means and freedom to support themselves, Bomba, Caroline and Sophia
do leep Singh were completely dependent upon the Queen. And
(20:48):
that is where we are going to end the sad
royal childhood portion of Sufiat Sophia do leep Sing's life.
We are going to continue in the next episode about
how Princess Sofia, who at the point where we're leaving her,
is considered to be kind of unassuming and playing and
quiet wind up becoming very politically defiant. And if you
(21:09):
were interested in this story, you can read it with
so so much more detail and so many things we
have not gotten into in the book. Sofia Princess Suffragette,
Revolutionary by Anita and Non. I highly recommend it, and
we're going to be talking about it talking about it
at the end of part two. Also, do you have
a little bit of listener mail for us? I knew
(21:31):
this is from Alison, and Alison says hello. Firstly, I
want to say how much I love your podcast, both
due to the lively and wonderful way you discuss history
and the wonderful research and ethics you put into it.
It is so great to hear people laughing and having
fun on the air. I so enjoyed the podcast on
the Alcott Family. I was super excited to see an
episode on moonshine because I'm a big whiskey buff and
(21:52):
make my own fruit and herbal infusions at home. In general,
I love the episode, but I wanted to note that
you did not mention the limited medicinal production of whiskey
during prohibition. Instead, you commented that no one could distill
at that time. While this was generally accurate, I found
the history of whiskey fascinating when I myself found out
about the contributions that that prohibition era medicinal distilleries made
(22:15):
to the survival of American whiskey production and American interest
in whiskey. I feel that this little side note could
have benefited the episode because I see it as similar
to current medical marijuana. I don't know if I totally
like the connection is there, and that both marijuana is
illegal in most places but medically legal in some places,
(22:37):
but overall, yeah, we did not get into that at
all that um. I had actually not until I looked
at the link that Allison sent to us. Uh did
not realize that there were things that were basically marketed
as medicinal whiskey. I did know that there were lots
and lots of patent medicines that were basically quack cures
that contained lots of alcohol. So mostly what they were
(22:59):
doing for you is getting you kind of drunk, not
actually treating any medical thing. You just wouldn't be any better, right,
So I didn't realize that they're they're also like there
are pictures in this link that I will put in
the show notes of things that were actually bottled and
sold as medicinal whiskey, which I didn't totally realize. Um so, yeah, that,
(23:22):
but it has that in common with marijuana, and that
they are both generally illegal but legal in some limited context.
But there's a whole other federal law part about marijuana
that takes it to a whole different level. Yeah. Uh So, anyway,
thank you Allison so much for writing in about that.
(23:42):
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(24:04):
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(24:30):
because it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast Tracy
Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. The subject of today's podcast
has been requested by a couple of different listeners. One
(00:21):
was Lackbreit, who wrote back in March, and another is Christopher,
who wrote in after promotions for the movie Suffragette raised
some controversy about the film's treatment of race, and I
want to be very clear, I have not seen seen Suffragette.
I cannot personally comment on how the film treated race.
But the thing that people were criticizing stem from the
(00:42):
fact that basically everybody in the movie is white, which
is simultaneously woefully inaccurate and sadly true. It number one,
people of color, particularly women of color, were definitely part
of the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, but at
the same time, that same movement a lot of times
(01:03):
was focused on the needs of white women, sometimes specifically,
to the exclusion of everyone else, and that is true
also in the United States suffrage movement. It's not something
that was unique to Britain. So that brings us to
today's subject. So Fia du leep Singh She was an
Indian princess whose father was the last Maharajah of the
(01:24):
Sikh Empire in what's now India and Pakistan. Queen Victoria
was her godmother. I've learned Queen Victoria had quite a
lot of god children, oh Vicky, so Fire was one
of so many. Uh So she became a very vocal presence,
a very vocal presence and the women's suffrage movement in
Britain and Princess Sofia's background and her upbringing had a
(01:48):
really huge influence on how she came to be part
of the movement and just generally how her life played out.
And her story doesn't make a whole lot of sense
without knowing a bit about her father and her grandfather.
So we're gonna tell her story in two parts. Today
is the Sad Royal childhood installment of this two parter.
If you have missed past hosts focused on Sad Royal childhoods,
(02:10):
that's what we're going to talk about today. Part two
is going to talk about her adult life and how
she started working to help women in Britain get the
right to vote. Sofia de Leippe Singh's grandfather, Runjeet Singh
founded the seek Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century.
He took the city of Lahore in seventeen nine and
then was named in Maharajah in eighteen oh one. Throughout
(02:34):
the nineteenth century, ron Jet sing annexed and conquered territories
that neighbored his own. He was backed by an army
that was made of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu soldiers. A
lot of his conquering and annexing, by all the accounts
that I found, seems to have been pretty welcomed because
the rulers that he ousted were often very corrupt and also,
(02:56):
banding together the neighboring kingdoms made the region as a whole,
say for a more stable Added to this was the
fact that he showed respect and tolerance for the various
religious beliefs and practices that existed within the region, rather
than forcing everyone to convert to the Maharaja's religion, which
as we said, was Sikhism. He even made a point
(03:17):
of marrying Hindu, Sikh and Muslim wives. Apart from all
this expansion of territory, one of the other acquisitions during
this time was the Kohe Neword Diamond. There's a whole
podcast about it in the archive, and he wore this
gem on a piece of jewelry on his arm, defying
the popular belief that this uh stone was in fact cursed.
(03:40):
By the time of Ranjit Singh's death in eighteen thirty nine,
the Sikh Empire was very large and very wealthy. But
without him around to lead this empire, the leaders of
the various factions that he had united started to work
against each other again. And it really didn't help that
one after another his successors were all assass needed. None
(04:01):
of them managed to hold on to their reign for
more than a couple of years. The heir to maintain
control of the empire for the longest period after Ranjeet
Singh's death was his youngest son, du Leip Singh. He
was Sofia du Leip Singh's father. Du Leip's mother, Maharani Jindkar,
was known as jindn She was one of his father's
(04:22):
more recent wives. At the time of his death, she
had refused to participate in the ritual of Sati, in
which Ranjeet's otherwives burned themselves to death on his funeral pyre.
She said that she was more dedicated to Dulip than
his than to his late father. That dedication became extremely
evident when Dulip Singh became the next person in line
(04:42):
of succession in eighteen forty three. His mother acted as
his regent, and her political savvy protected the young Maharaja
for several years. She was able to keep him relatively unharmed,
even as others around him were assassinated an ongoing power
grab that changed with the First Anglo Sikh War, which
(05:04):
was fought between the Seak Empire and the British East
India Company and its allies. The British East India Company
took over what remained of the Seek Empire in eighteen
forty nine, claiming to be acting on the young Maharaj's behalf,
It presented him with a treaty that outlined, among other things,
terms for quote protecting him until he was sixteen. In
(05:25):
the meantime, his mother would still act as regent. Side
note also included in this treaty was surrendering the Collonord
Diamond to the Queen of England, and this British protection
was unfortunately not to be The British East India Company
slowly infiltrated Lahore with its own troops. It banished Duleiep's mother,
(05:45):
who had become vocal about their distrust of them, when
Delip was nine years old. At the age of eleven,
Dulip himself was exiled. He was sent to one of
India's northwestern provinces, away from his supporters, and given to
a Scottish family to tooter. Eventually he converted from Sikhism
to Christianity. At the age of fifteen, Julip Singh asked
(06:07):
if he could visit England to see the Queen, and
Queen Victoria, who had been intensely curious about the boy,
enthusiastically agreed, and once he was in England, do Leiep
Singh became one of Queen Victoria's favorites. The India Office,
which oversaw Britain's rule of the Indian provinces, granted him
an income which was pittance in comparison to the wealth
(06:28):
of the seek Empire, but made him richer than a
lot of British nobility. But even though he had lots
of money and he was clearly doated on by the Queen,
he was still Indian and therefore still viewed his inferior
by much of the British aristocracy. As Duleep got older,
he started very publicly and very enthusiastically carousing around with
(06:48):
Prince Albert, then known as Bertie, who would later become
King Edward the seventh. Naturally, this public carousing became quite
embarrassing to the monarchs, so she started trying to find
a good match for him, hoping that if Julip Sing
got married, he would settle down. She had to do
this while also trying to keep him in the dark
about the realities of British colonial rule in India, which
(07:12):
we have other things on in the archive. To be
very very for a generously brief it was not great. Yeah,
And when Queen Victoria's husband Albert died on December fourteenth
of eighteen sixty one, as his fairly common knowledge, Victoria
lost interest in a lot of things, and that included
(07:32):
dou Leip and his family's situation. Two years later, while
the Queen was still deeply in mourning, Duleep's mother also
died at the age of forty five. It was only
after making his last trip to India to take his
mother's body home and have it cremated according to seek
traditions that he realized that his life in England was
likely to be extremely lonely upon his return, so with
(07:56):
the Queen still otherwise occupied, he took the matter of
his marriage and to his own hands. On the way
back to England, he stopped in Cairo he married the
beautiful and pious Bomba Mueler. This was the illegitimate daughter
of a German merchant and an enslaved woman from Abyssinia,
which today is mostly Ethiopia. Du Leep wrote to Bomba's
(08:17):
father to ask him to grant her legitimacy so that
the whole thing would not be quite so shocking to
the Queen. Then he married her after knowing her for
about four months. Fortunately, once the Queen actually met her,
she liked her as well. The couple moved to Elveden
Estate in Suffolk, which Duleep spent lots of time and
money remodeling. He blended British and Indian influences into this project,
(08:42):
and he added a huge menagerie to the grounds, full
of animals that were to the British landscape quite exotic,
including leopards, cheetah's, monkeys and parrots. This was, as you
can imagine, quite lavish. This remodeling project went on for
thirteen years, which also saw the births all of Sophia's
older siblings. Just as the remodel was complete, it also
(09:05):
saw the birth of Sophia herself. We will talk about
her early life after a brief word from one of
our sponsors, and now we go back to our story.
So Fia Douleep Singh was born on August eight, seventy six.
In addition to being the youngest, uh the youngest of
the Duleep Singh children at the time, there was a
(09:25):
several year gap between her and her brothers and sisters,
who had all been born within one or two year
increments of one another. So how's the baby she was
doated on. Not long after her birth, though, things sort
of started to go south at home. Although her father
had a sizeable income from the India Office, he was
outspending it and significantly so. He also had something of
(09:49):
a gambling problem. Plus he just felt like he was
royalty so he should be able to do what he wanted,
even though he didn't really have an empire anymore. In
spite of the fact that every and I was trying
to keep him in the dark about it. He also
started learning more about British activities in his former home,
as well as about how his mother had been treated
by the British, which was not well. He became increasingly defiant,
(10:14):
and when the Queen's bankers started insisting that he reigned
in his spending, he responded by spending even more. It
took the Queen herself sending him a letter directly before
he begrudgingly approached his life with any sort of adherence
to a budget. In August of eighteen seventy nine, Sophia's
little brother, Albert Edward duleep Singh was born, making Sophia
(10:37):
one of six siblings to survive their infancy. Because they
were so much younger than the older four children, Sofia
and the baby, who was known as Eddie were particularly close.
After Eddie's birth, things continued to get worse around the
duleep sing home. Julippe himself had been having affairs throughout
his marriage, and these became increasingly serious and increasingly public.
(10:58):
He had a number of illegitimate children, and some of
the older ones he gave jobs at the Elveden estate.
This behavior became increasingly upsetting to his wife, and a
huge riff started to develop in the couple's marriage. Finally,
the British government made it clear that it would no
longer tolerate do Leif's excesses. It offered him a one
(11:20):
time payment that would allow him to settle all his
debts in an exchange, it would take control of the
estate at Elveden upon his death. This meant that de
Leppe would basically be broke but not in debt, and
would have no property to leave his children. In desperation,
he wrote to the Queen directly, and in her reply
she suggested that she might be able to help his
(11:41):
children after he was gone, but though when it came
to his own finances, she basically reminded him that he
had been warned. In her words, quote as I once
or twice mentioned to you before. I think you were
thought extravagant and that may have led to a want
of confidence as regards to the future. Oh, you have
to admire her turn of phrase. Yeah, I was just thinking.
(12:02):
I'm glad I never ran a foul of Queen Victoria
needing to tell me and I told you so. Because
this is simultaneously so deft and so putting him down,
but so incredibly polite. Uh, in retaliation for what he
perceived as having been taken advantage of. After all, as
(12:23):
you recall, the seek Empire was worth far more than
the British government had ever given him. De Leepe teamed
up with Army Major Evans Bell to write a tell
all book about the British annexation of his empire, and
there really was quite a bit to tell. However, the
book was really a rush job. It was sloppy, and
it was full of errors, so frankly, it just did
(12:43):
not meet its audience being taken seriously at all, it
definitely was not what do Leep had hoped it would be.
He wanted it to be an injury to the crown
and a rallying cry for fairer treatment of India and
of himself and his family when he was increasingly publicly
speaking out against Britain. But given his reputation by this
(13:04):
point and his demeanor in doing so, people once again
did not take him very seriously. Eventually it came to
the point where he started auctioning off his belongings. He
was shopping for hot weather clothes for his family and
planning to take them back to India. He wrote to
the Queen and informed her that he would be converting
back to Seekism once they arrived there. This was really
(13:25):
the last thing he felt like he could genuinely threaten
Queen Victoria with. She was very devout and one of
the reasons his presence at court had been so acceptable
to her was that he was a Christian. The dou
Leep Singh family made it to the Gulf of Odden,
but couldn't get cleared to go through the Suez Canal,
which would they were going to need to do to
continue the rest of the way to India. Finally, after
(13:47):
something of a stalemate, do they put his family on
a ship and sent them back to England without him.
Do Leep Singh stayed behind, and on May six he
was rebapped tised as a Sikh. When the weather in
Odden didn't agree with him, he got permission from the
British to go anywhere he wished, except India. The government
(14:08):
was afraid that his presence there would rile up anti
colonial sentiment, and so instead he went to France and
he tried to rile up that sentiment there. Meanwhile, Obamba
and the children returned to England, where they had no
home and no income, and wound up being entirely dependent
on Queen Victoria, who had them housed at first in
a hotel. Not long after, de Leipsing posted a public
(14:32):
notice that he relinquished all responsibility for his family and
their well being and their debts, instead started focusing on
raising money and manpower to try to retake his kingdom
from Britain. Queen Victoria was godmother to two of de
Leep's children, both Safia and her brother Victor, and she
felt a moral responsibility to look after the whole family,
(14:54):
So the India Office granted Maherini bamba and income, although
it was of course much smaller than do Leaps had
been the two oldest children, both sons, were both put
into school, and the eldest, Victor, was put into a
military academy. They were hoping to curtail the habits of
gambling and excess that he had picked up from his father.
Victor was expected to enter the British Army as an officer,
(15:17):
which normally was not allowed for foreign princes, but the
fact that he was the Queen's god son allowed for
the exception. At this point, Sofia was eleven, Her mother
had fallen into a deep depression and their nanny, who
had looked after them for much of their earliest years,
had taken another post in the face of the Maharini's behavior,
and this left Sofia and her younger brother mostly unsupervised.
(15:42):
To try to give the household and the younger children
some semblance of stability and order, A man named Arthur
Oliphant was put in charge of them. He wasn't just
appointed their head of household, though he was also supposed
to keep tabs on them and report back to the queen.
He moved them to his home in Kent and started
trying to encourage them into a more refined upbringing. Once
(16:05):
she had instructors in both academics and deportment, Sophia did
indeed progress very rapidly. She was really smart, and she
had a gift for music, and she began to behave
in a way that was closer to what was expected
of a young lady of her station. But unfortunately, than
a series of tragedies plagued her adolescence, and we're going
to talk about those after we have a brief word
(16:28):
from one of our fabulous sponsors. In September, Sophie I
got typhoid, and while she was sick. Her mother lapsed
into a coma and died. She was thirty nine. She
had basically been sitting vigil and then sort of inexplicably
fell ill and died. The Queen gave Sophia's father permission
(16:48):
to come back to Britain for her mother's funeral, but
he chose not to do it, and of course the
children were completely heartbroken at having lost their mother, and afterward,
Oliphant and his wife continued to look after all the
girls and little Eddie, who remember was the youngest. With
a more stable home and dedicated tutors, all of the
(17:09):
children started to learn very quickly. This basically kept them
under the very careful eye of Elephant, who was still
giving reports back to the Queen on their behavior, and
this also enabled their caretakers to try to teach them
to be proper British children, with proper British attitudes and
proper British deference to the Queen. Oliphant and the and
(17:30):
the Queen thought this was especially necessary because both Sophia
and Eddie were old enough to remember their father's increasingly
outspoken anger at Britain. They also could remember their aborted
trip to India. Which had been thwarted by the British
authorities that wouldn't allow them through the Suettes Canal. They were, not, however,
quite old enough to grasp that talking about it, especially
(17:53):
in a way that reflected well on their father and
badly on Britain, would probably not go over well with
the people in show arge of their care. Eventually, it
was decided that the children needed a clean break or
they would never grow up in a way that suited
their station. Sofia and Eddie were sent to Brighton and
the two older sisters, Catherine and Bomba, were sent to university.
(18:15):
With all her older siblings no longer at home, so
Fi became sort of the lynch pen of the family.
She was the one that all of her siblings wrote
to and trusted her to pass on news of the others.
She also looked after her one younger brother. She learned
to play the piano, and she did quite well with it,
and she did gradually take on more of the department
(18:36):
that was expected of her. However, their progress in their
studies was short lived. In eighteen ninety, their father, who
had developed a very serious drinking problem, had a series
of major strokes. He wrote to the Queen to ask
for forgiveness, and he was given permission to come back
to Britain under the condition that he beat unfailingly, unquestioningly
(18:58):
obedient to the monarch. By this point he had remarried,
and the Queen was not willing to extend much hospitality
to Deleep's new wife. In her mind, that was the
woman responsible for turning de Leip away from his family
and away from his Christian faith. In spite of having
gotten permission to return to Britain, there was not much
of a happy reunion for the deleep Singh family. So
(19:20):
Faia's father had a serious heart attack while still in France,
and about the same time, little Eddie got pneumonia that
was complicated by other infections. While de Leip was able
to come to England to see his son, he didn't
stay long because he was afraid his own failing health
would distract the doctors from looking after Eddie. Eddie de
(19:42):
leep Sing died at the age of thirteen in April
of eighteen ninety three. De Leip Sing died just months
later alone in a hotel room on the night of
October twenty two. The staff found him on the floor
the next morning. He was only fifty five at the time.
Against his final wishes, which were to be buried wherever
he died, do Leep Sing's children had his body brought
(20:04):
back to England. He was buried at Eldon Hall alongside
his first wife and his deceased son, the now orphans.
Sofia was understandably distraught. She had just turned seventeen and
in just a few years she had lost her mother,
her father, and her much adored little brother. The nanny,
who had taken another post during her mother's depression, had
(20:26):
also died, literally as the Oliphants were trying to bring
her back to look after them again. The douleep Singh
children had also lost their home, their status, and nearly
all of their wealth. While her surviving brothers had the
means and freedom to support themselves, Bomba, Caroline and Sophia
do leep Singh were completely dependent upon the Queen. And
(20:48):
that is where we are going to end the sad
royal childhood portion of Sufiat Sophia do leep Sing's life.
We are going to continue in the next episode about
how Princess Sofia, who at the point where we're leaving her,
is considered to be kind of unassuming and playing and
quiet wind up becoming very politically defiant. And if you
(21:09):
were interested in this story, you can read it with
so so much more detail and so many things we
have not gotten into in the book. Sofia Princess Suffragette,
Revolutionary by Anita and Non. I highly recommend it, and
we're going to be talking about it talking about it
at the end of part two. Also, do you have
a little bit of listener mail for us? I knew
(21:31):
this is from Alison, and Alison says hello. Firstly, I
want to say how much I love your podcast, both
due to the lively and wonderful way you discuss history
and the wonderful research and ethics you put into it.
It is so great to hear people laughing and having
fun on the air. I so enjoyed the podcast on
the Alcott Family. I was super excited to see an
episode on moonshine because I'm a big whiskey buff and
(21:52):
make my own fruit and herbal infusions at home. In general,
I love the episode, but I wanted to note that
you did not mention the limited medicinal production of whiskey
during prohibition. Instead, you commented that no one could distill
at that time. While this was generally accurate, I found
the history of whiskey fascinating when I myself found out
about the contributions that that prohibition era medicinal distilleries made
(22:15):
to the survival of American whiskey production and American interest
in whiskey. I feel that this little side note could
have benefited the episode because I see it as similar
to current medical marijuana. I don't know if I totally
like the connection is there, and that both marijuana is
illegal in most places but medically legal in some places,
(22:37):
but overall, yeah, we did not get into that at
all that um. I had actually not until I looked
at the link that Allison sent to us. Uh did
not realize that there were things that were basically marketed
as medicinal whiskey. I did know that there were lots
and lots of patent medicines that were basically quack cures
that contained lots of alcohol. So mostly what they were
(22:59):
doing for you is getting you kind of drunk, not
actually treating any medical thing. You just wouldn't be any better, right,
So I didn't realize that they're they're also like there
are pictures in this link that I will put in
the show notes of things that were actually bottled and
sold as medicinal whiskey, which I didn't totally realize. Um so, yeah, that,
(23:22):
but it has that in common with marijuana, and that
they are both generally illegal but legal in some limited context.
But there's a whole other federal law part about marijuana
that takes it to a whole different level. Yeah. Uh So, anyway,
thank you Allison so much for writing in about that.
(23:42):
Uh if you would like to write to us about
this or any other podcast for history podcasts but how
stuff Works dot com. We're also on Facebook at facebook
dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter at
miss in history. Are tumbler is missed in history dot
tumbler dot com, and or on Pinterest at panthers dot
com slash miss in history. If you would like to
learn about all kinds of cool stuff, you can come
to our parent company's website, which is how Stuff Works
(24:04):
dot com. You want to see a whole archive of
every episode we have ever done and show notes where
I will put, for example, the link to the article
that Allison sent over about medicinal whiskey, you can come
to our website which is missed in history dot com,
So we do all that a whole lot more at
how stuff works dot com or miss in history dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics
(24:30):
because it how stuff works dot com
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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