Royalty in India.
The personal influence of Her Majesty, and the presence of princes of the royal blood, have imparted a new prestige to British sovereignty. The visit of the Duke of Edinburgh during the régime of Lord Mayo, and the extended tour of the Prince of Wales during the régime of Lord Northbrook, were welcomed in India with every demonstration of joy and loyalty. The old East India Company was a magnificent corporation, but had always been a mystery to Asiatics. The presence of British princes, the sons of Her Majesty, solved the problem for ever.
Lord Lytton Viceroy, 1876-80: proclamation of the Empress.
§13. Finally the Imperial assemblage at Delhi on the 1st of January, 1877, when Her Majesty was proclaimed Empress of India by Lord Lytton, in the presence of all the members of the Indian governments, all the high officials of the empire, and of all the Asiatic feudatory rulers and their ministers, gave a reality to British sovereignty in India which had previously been wanting. When Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to the East India Company, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Queen Anne received a present of "tay" from the Court of Directors, and even when George III. and Queen Charlotte graciously accepted an ivory bedstead from the polite Warren Hastings, not a soul in the British Isles could possibly have dreamed that the nineteenth century would see the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland reigning as Empress over the dominions of the Great Mogul. Neither could the Asiatic populations of that dim commercial period, who beheld the European gentlemen writing letters and keeping accounts in factories and fortresses, have imagined that a day would come when the descendants of the "European gentlemen" would be the rulers of India.
Second Afghan war.
§14. Under Lord Lytton's régime there was a second war in Afghanistan. Shere Ali Khan had become estranged from the British government. He imprisoned his eldest son, Yakub Khan, and refused British mediation. He was offended because the British government would not conclude an offensive and defensive alliance on equal terms. He received a mission from Russia at Cabul, and refused to receive a mission from the British government.
British designs.
Accordingly, it was resolved to establish British supremacy in Afghanistan; to advance the British frontier to the Hindu Kush; to convert the mountain range into a natural fortress, with Afghan-Turkistan for its berme and the river Oxus for its ditch. Russia already held the glacis, as represented by Usbeg-Turkistan.
Massacre and submission.
Shere Ali Khan fled away northward as the British army advanced, and died in exile. Yakub Khan succeeded to the throne, and submitted to the demands of the British Resident. Then followed the cruel and cowardly massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British Resident at Cabul, with all his officers and attendants; the abdication of Yakub Khan; and finally the accession of Abdul Rahman Khan, the present Amir, who was son of the first born of Dost Mohammed who was ousted in favour of Shere Ali.