The King gives way to scandalous excesses, and exercises the most wanton cruelty. — Mirza Khan, the minister, is suspected of a design to raise the King's uncle to the throne. — The minister is confined — is again released, and recommends all the surviving male members of the royal family to be put to death. — Fifteen princes assassinated in one day. — The minister is again accused of treason. — Plot to seize him converted by the minister against the King himself. — The King's person is secured. — The Prince Ismael, being only twelve years of age, is placed on the throne by the minister and the foreign troops. — Jumal Khan, a Deccany leader, heads a tumult to oppose the measures of the minister Mirza Khan. — Jumal Khan demands the restoration of Meeran Hoossein — the latter is assassinated, and his head exposed upon a pole to the populace. — Jumal Khan insists on the Deccanies having the lead in the government, and excites the people to attack the fort of Ahmudnuggur. — They burn the gates and enter it. — The foreigners, both in the town and city, sought for, and put to death by the Deccanies and Abyssinians. — The minister Mirza Khan is disgraced, and suffers a cruel death.
MEERAN HOOSSEIN NIZAM SHAH, on his accession to the throne of Ahmudnuggnr, being of an impetuous and cruel disposition, began his reign by tyranny and oppression. He appointed Mirza Khan prime minister, but paid little regard to his advice; so that he was disappointed in the hopes he had entertained of making a pageant of the Prince, and keeping the real power in his own hands. The King having promoted several young persons of his own age to high rank, made them the companions of his pleasures and excesses. It was frequently his custom, in fits of intoxication, to ride through the city with his drunken associates and put persons to death, though guilty of no crime. Having learned that Mirza Khan had privately brought Shah Kasim, brother to Moortuza Nizam Shah, from the fort of Soonere, and concealed him in his house with a view to create a revolution in his favour, the King became alarmed, and confined the minister. The next day, however, finding the accusation false, he restored him to his employments, and gave him his full confidence; and Mirza Khan, in order to prevent future suspicion, advised the King to put to death the surviving males of the royal family. At his instance fifteen princes were accordingly murdered in one day. Not long after this event, the power of Mirza Khan becoming irksome to the King's companions, they again accused him of treachery, and the King believing it, would in his drunken hours exclaim at one time that he would behead him with his own hand, and at another, that he would have him trod to death by elephants. These circumstances being reported to Mirza Khan, he resolved to ensure his own safety by deposing the King, who, in his turn, tried every means to get the minister into his power. On the 10th
Jumad-ool-
Awul 10.
A. H. 997.
March 15.
A. D. 1588.
of Jumad-ool-Awul, 997, the King repaired to the house of his favourite Bungush Khan, and sent for Mirza Khan to partake of a banquet, intending to have him assassinated; but the minister, being on his guard, excused himself, under pretence of sudden illness, sending his friend Agha Meer to make his excuse. Agha Meer reached the house of Bungush Khan just as the King had dined, but the master of the house had waited, out of complaisance, to dine with Mirza Khan. When Agha Meer had eaten some dinner, he pretended to be seized with violent pains, declaring that he was poisoned, and left the house. Mirza Khan, soon after, sent a message to the King, that the Agha was dying, and entreated to see him. The King unsuspiciously repaired with a few attendants to the fort, where he was seized by the minister and confined. Mirza Khan then sent off Meer Tahir Nyshapoory to bring the two sons of the King's paternal uncle, Boorhan Nizam Shah, from the fort of Lohgur, that he might choose one of them to place on the throne, concealing the circumstance of the King's imprisonment till their arrival.
On the third day, Meer Tahir returned with the Princes, the one named Ibrahim, and the other Ismael; and the minister summoning several of the principal nobility into the fort, declared to them the deposal of Meeran Hoossein, and the accession of Ismael Nizam Shah (the younger brother), then only in his twelfth year. While the assembly was engaged in saluting the new king, a great tumult was heard at the gates of the fort, where Jumal Khan, a military leader, with several other officers and soldiers, chiefly Abyssinians and Deccanies, had assembled, demanding to see Meeran Hoossein their lawful sovereign. Mirza Khan sent them word, that Meeran Hoossein, being unworthy to govern, had been deposed, and that he had been succeeded by his cousin Ismael, who should appear and receive their homage. Jumal Khan became more clamorous, and sent persons to proclaim through the city, that the minister, aided by his foreign mercenaries, had deposed their sovereign, and seated another prince on the throne, and that if he were allowed to make kings and to act uncontrolled in this manner, the native nobles and inhabitants of the country would soon become slaves to foreign adventurers. The Deccany troops and the inhabitants, inflamed by this proclamation, flew to arms, and in a short time about five thousand horse and foot, with a numerous mob, joined Jumal Khan, who was also supported by all the Abyssinians.
Mirza Khan, thinking to appease the tumult by
the death of Meeran Hoossein, commanded his
head to be struck off, and placing it on a pole,
planted it on one of the bastions of the citadel.
At the same time, a person cried out to the multitude
below, that as they must now be convinced
of the death of the King, if they would retire
quietly to their houses they should be rewarded
by the favour of Ismael Nizam Shah, now their
sovereign. Several of the leaders proposed to
retire; but Jumal Khan cried out, that if Meeran
Hoossein were murdered, they ought to revenge
his death on the foreigners, take into their own
hands the administration of the government of
Ismael Nizam Shah, and not suffer the country to
be governed by strangers. On this, a resolution
was formed to attack the fort; and having heaped
piles of wood and straw against the gates, the mob
set them on fire. About sunset, the gates were
burned; but the quantity of hot ashes yet glowing
prevented any one passing in or out till midnight,
when Mirza Khan and his friends rushed from
the citadel, and tried to make their escape. Numbers
of others were slain in the attempt by the populace;
but Mirza Khan having effected his retreat,
fled towards the fort of Joonere. The Deccany
troops, the Abyssinians, and the mob, having
entered the fort, put to death every foreigner they
found within, amounting to nearly three hundred,
among whom were several persons of high rank
and eminent character. Their bodies were dragged
out on the open plain, and orders given that they
should lie unburied. Not content with the past
slaughter, Jumal Khan commanded his adherents
to murder the foreigners of every rank and occupation
in the city, and to plunder and burn their
dwellings. The soldiers and their followers, being
once let loose, put to death indiscriminately
the noble, the master, the servant, the merchant,
the pilgrim, and the travelling stranger. Their
houses were set on fire, and the heads of those
lately exalted to the skies were brought low, and
trampled in the dust; while the very females, who
from modesty concealed their faces from the sun
and moon, were dragged by the hair into the assemblages
of the drunken. On the fourth day, Mirza
Khan, who had been seized near Joonere, was
brought to Jumal Khan, and being first carried
through the city on an ass, his body was hewn in
pieces, which were affixed on different buildings.
Several of his friends taken with him were also put
to death, and their bodies being rammed into cannon,
were blown into the air. In the space of seven
days, nearly a thousand foreigners were murdered;
some few only escaping under the protection of
Deccany or Abyssinian officers. The reign of Mee-