The End of Coorg Royalty

After being deposed, Chikka Vira Raja had to leave Mercara under the escort of two English regiments commanded by Col. Stewart who delivered him over at Bangalore to the charge of the Commissioner of Mysore on the 12th May 1834. A number of his wives accompanied him. In their palkis and his own he concealed vast sums of money in gold, so that the bearers could hardly carry their loads. At the first halting place beyond the frontier of Coorg, at Sirlecote, he buried a great quantity of treasure, for he found the concealment no longer safe, as he was allowed to carry away only ten thousand rupees. A certain Karyagara from Nalkanad, who accompanied the Raja, afterwards helped himself to a large amount of this treasure, and when the secret oozed out, he found it necessary toinform Captain Le Hardy that he knew of treasure secreted by the Raja. An elephant was despatched to the eastward under the guidance of the honest Coorg, who faithfully delivered to the Company all he had left there, and received a reward of Rs. 1,000 for his loyal honesty.

From Bangalore the ex-Raja proceeded to Vellore, and finally to Benares, where he drew a monthly pension of Rs. 6,000 out of the Coorg revenue. The British Government confiscated the money deposited in Government securities by his uncle Dodda Vira Raja; still the Raja was in possession of the valuable jewelry of his murdered cousin Devammaji, which, together with the money carried away from Coorg, enabled him to play, though under Government surveillance, the role of a rich Indian Prince, and to keep up through paid agents a secret correspondence with Coorg, reviving from time to time rumours of his return to the Principality which caused no little anxiety to the English Superintendent of Coorg. When the ex-Raja was convinced of the hopelessness of ever regaining his Principality, he demanded the payment of the capital of Rs. 680,000, the inheritance of his cousin Devammaji, the interest of which he drew up to 1833 through Messrs. Binny & Co. in Madras. But in vain.

At last, in 1852, he obtained leave from Lord Dalhousie to visit England with his favourite daughter Gauramma, who was then ten years old, in order to give her the advantages of an European education. Arrived there, he expressed a wish to have her brought up in the Christian faith. Queen Victoria took an interest in the Indian Princess, and at her baptism, on the 30th June 1852, stood sponsor through the Archbishop of Canterbury, and gave her the name 'Victoria.' By this achievement feeling himself strong in the royal favor, the ex-Raja commenced a chancery suit against the East India Company for the recovery of the Rs.680,000, but it dragged on a weary course. Meanwhile, in 1858, the Government of India was placed under the Crown and his suit fell to the ground.

The Coorg Princess Victoria Gauramma was, by the Queen, first placed in charge of the wife of Major Drummond, and then entrusted to Sir John Login—the former guardian of Dhulip Sing—in whose family she received a most careful and pious education. She eventually married an English officer, but the union was not a happy one, and she died on the 1st April 1864. Her husband and child afterwards mysteriously disappeared, and have never been heard of since. Vira Raja had died before, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery in London.

Thus ended with Vira Raja Wodeyar, the Royal House of Coorg, the line of the Rajas of Haleri.

Source: Mysore and Coorg, Vol. III by Lewis Rice