Abstract
At the Court of Ava, Prince Mindon deplored the loss of Burmese lives in the counter-attacks, and wanted to ask for terms from the British. He won support from some of the ministers and also from his fiery younger brother, the Prince of Kanaung, one of the senior commanders of the armies. The King ordered the arrest of his two younger brothers, who, however, managed to escape to Shwebo, the ancestral home of the Alaungpaya dynasty, a few days before Dalhousie’s proclamation of annexation of Pegu. The Hluttaw at the prompting of Magwe Mingyi, the senior minister, deposed Pagan Min and elected Mindon in his place. The Hluttaw also recalled all troops fighting the British. Mindon (1853–1878) returned to the capital and ascended the throne in early February. The first action of Mindon was to release all European prisoners, and he sent a deputation of these Europeans led by two Italian priests, members of the Roman Catholic mission at the Burmese capital, to contact the commander of the British expeditionary force and to tell him that the King was sending immediately a peace mission. The two priests met the British commander who informed them that the peace overtures were too late as, by a proclamation made at Rangoon on December 20, 1852, Pegu had been annexed by the British.
O, ’tis a burden... ’tis a burden Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!
Shakespeare, King Henry VIII
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© 1965 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Aung, M.H. (1965). The Humiliation of King Mindon. In: The Stricken Peacock. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1045-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1045-5_4
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