Ebook: Sophia: princess, suffragette, revolutionary
Author: Anand Anita, Duleep Singh Sophia Alexandra
- Tags: East Indians, East Indians--Great Britain, Social conditions, Suffragists, Suffragists--Great Britain, Women East Indian, Women East Indian--Great Britain, Biographies, Duleep Singh Sophia Alexandra -- 1876-1948, Suffragists -- Great Britain -- Biography, Women East Indian -- Great Britain -- Biography, East Indians -- Great Britain -- Biography, Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century, Great Britain
- Year: 2014
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
- City: Great Britain
- Edition: First paperback edition
- Language: English
- epub
In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, a realm that stretched from the lush Kashmir Valley to the craggy foothills of the Khyber Pass and included the mighty cities of Lahore and Peshawar. It was a territory irresistible to the British, who plundered everything, including the fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond.
Exiled to England, the dispossessed Maharajah transformed his estate at Elveden in Suffolk into a Moghul palace, its grounds stocked with leopards, monkeys and exotic birds. Sophia, god-daughter of Queen Victoria, was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman: presented at court, afforded grace-and-favour lodgings at Hampton Court Palace and photographed wearing the latest fashions for the society pages. But when, in secret defiance of the British government, she travelled to India, she returned a revolutionary.