Allegations of Secret Diplomacy and End of the Burmese Kingdom

Abstract

After 1875, Mindon was a broken and disappointed man, and he ceased to take much interest in foreign policy. All his attention was now focussed on the problem of choosing an heir for the throne. His ministers again and again pressed him to appoint a Crown Prince, but he hesitated because he feared that to nominate any of his sons as his successor would be the signal for others to rebel in disappointment. This hesitation resulted in an atmosphere of suspense and anxiety in the palace and also in the kingdom itself, and he himself became sick and ailing. Finally in 1878, he realized that he was dying, and he sent for the Prince of Nyaungyan, who was the most able and the most popular of his sons. But the air was thick with rumours of palace intrigues and plots and counter-plots, and some even said that the King was dead. Nyaungyan was disturbed by these rumours, and he thought that the King was already dead or in a torpor, and he was being sent for to be arrested by some plotters, so that their own nominee could be placed on the throne. Calling his younger brother, the Nyaungok Prince, he slipped out of the palace and took refuge in the British Residency. Kinwun Mingyi, in the name of the King, demanded from the British Resident their surrender, but the latter refused to comply, and secretly sent the two princes down the river to Lower Burma in his own armed launch, and thence to Calcutta where they were given a pension and kept under surveillance. The British obviously meant to use the Prince of Nyaungyan in future as a political pawn. The Burmese, however, thinking that the prince was still in the British Residency, waited for his surrender, and thus some precious days were lost. The King then named a council of regency consisting of three of his sons, but Kinwun Mingyi refused to accept the King’s instructions, pointing out that such a council of regency would merely result in civil war. The King died and Kinwun Mingyi and other ministers of the Hluttaw proclaimed young Theebaw as King.

For me, the gold of France did not seduce. Shakespeare, King Henry V

Slander, Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale