Duleep Singh

Duleep Singh was the deposed maharaja of the Sikhs.

Biography
Mr Singh was made maharaja at the age of five. He was deposed at the age of ten and effectively a prisoner of Queen Victoria thereafter, being pressured by her at a young age into gifting her the Koh-i-Noor, which he found humiliating.

He was given an English education and treated no differently than the Queen's children, sometimes imagining that the rocking chair in his nursery was an elephant taking him to Hyderabad. If he ever misbehaved, his tutor sent a letter to the Queen, who would advise that he be beaten. He lived in exile in Vendôme Hotel, the Queen later telling him that he had wasted his life.

The Queen took Mr Singh to a sea fortress where Colonel Oliver Crackenthorpe was stationed, having engineered the situation so that Mr Singh would free the creature trapped there and allow her to station him there as the colonel's replacement, giving him a purpose in life. (AUDIO: Fortitude)