Râjasimha II
Encyclopedia
Rajasimha II, also known as Rajasingha II (pre coronation, Prince Mahastana), was a Sinhalese king, reigned 1629 – 6 December 1687; third king of the kingdom of Kandy
in Sri Lanka
. Rajasingha requested Dutch
aid to help expel the Portuguese
from the island, which they successfully did in 1656. By this time however it had become clear to the Kandyans that the Dutch not only intended to expel the Portuguese but to replace them as the major colonial
power on the island, and from 1645 onwards Rajasingha was engaged in sporadic warfare with his erstwhile allies.
) in Sri Lanka's mountainous interior. Since the Portuguese annexation of much of Sri Lanka's coastal areas the kingdom had represented the sole independent native polity on the island. Near incessant warfare had significantly embittered the Kandyans towards the Portuguese; furthermore the brief success of the warlike kingdom of Sitawaka a century earlier had convinced many in the kingdom that the total expulsion of the colonial power was a distinct possibility.
As a young man Rajasingha participated in the 1612 counter-offensive that routed a Portuguese invasion into Kandyan territory.
Rajasingha succeeded his father to the throne in 1634 (1629 in some sources)
, put Portuguese Goa
under a blockade. On 28 March 1638, Rajasingha led his army to victory against the Portuguese forces at Gannoruwa
. Soon after this, Rajasingha sent a request for aid to the admiral Adam Westerwolt and by 23 May 1638 had signed an extensive military and trade treaty with them http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.htmlhttp://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH11Df02.html.
The Dutch seized Batticaloa
on 18 May 1639 and a joint Kandyan-Dutch campaign began to make inroads into Portugal's lowland territories. The alliance was however deeply unpopular with the inhabitants of Kandy http://www.sridaladamaligawa.lk/english/perahara_in2.html.
Tensions soon arose between the two parties. Batticaloa was the traditional port of the Kandyan kingdom (Trincomalee
had long been lost, first to the Jaffna Kingdom
and then to the Portuguese), and Rajasingha was eager to acquire it as soon as possible. The Dutch, however, demurred, demanding full payment for their assistance in displacing the Portuguese. Despite a rising suspicion that the Dutch were not in Sri Lanka to expel the Portuguese, so much as to replace them, the alliance was one that was too valuable for Rajasingha to simply cancel, and joint Dutch-Kandyan efforts resulted in the seizure of Galle
on 13 March 1640 http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html and the restriction of Portuguese power to the west coast of Sri Lanka by 1641.
The slow end of the Eighty Year's War however soon resulted in a truce being called between Dutch and Portuguese forces in Sri Lanka (the crowns of Spain
and Portugal
were united between 1580–1640) sometime between 1641 and 1645. Rajasinga, and many of his advisers, furiously concluded that the Dutch intended to carve Sri Lanka up with the Portuguese, to the detriment of native power. The alliance of 1638 came to an abrupt end and Kandy launched into what was to be a hundred years of intermittent warfare with the Dutch http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html.
The period between 1645 and 1649 saw the Kandyan adopting a scorched earth
policy in eastern Sri Lanka. Capturing and annexing Dutch held territory was out of the question for the Kandyans who could muster neither the fire power nor the man power for an occupation. Nevertheless Rajasingha's policy of intentionally burning crops and depopulation villages drove the Dutch to the negotiating table and in 1649 and the Kandyan-Dutch alliance was resurrected, albeit on slightly different terms http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html.
Despite the resurrection of the treaty tensions remained between the Dutch and the Kandyans. The Treaty of Munster
had secured Dutch independence in Europe in 1648 and they could now pursue colonial and mercantile expansion without fighting a ruinous war on their doorstep simultaneously. In contrast the kingdom of Kandy was exhausted by constant war, and still without access to Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and the lowlands. Furthermore it had limited resources, and was increasingly wracked by internal instability.
Nevertheless from 1652 joint Kandyan-Dutch forces waged an increasingly brutal war against Portuguese strongholds along the coast. During this time Rajasingha had to request support from the sub-king — Patabanda — of Koggala http://www.defonseka.com/k24.htm#_ftnref1, which suggests that the Kandyan kingdom had by this time become very decentralised, and that local leaders held considerable power.
The landlocked Kandyans were successful in the inland area of the Korales and Sabaragamuwa but relied heavily on Dutch sea power. Accordingly in August 1655 a large Dutch fleet commanded by Gerard Pietersz. Hulft
arrived and the war entered its final phase with the siege by land and sea of the Portuguese colonial capital Colombo
. By this point Rajasingha did not trust the Dutch at all and insisted that the city should be ceded to the Kandyan the moment it fell. When this happened in 1656, however, the Dutch shut the gates and left the Kandyans in the hinterlands. Faced with what he saw as yet another example of Dutch perfidy, Rajasingha repeated his devastations of the mid-1640s in the hinterlands of Colombo and withdrew to Kandy. The Dutch in the meanwhile secured power over the kingdom of Jaffna in 1658 and essentially replaced the Portuguese as Kandy's natural enemy on the island.
Safe in his mountain fastness Rajasingha now adopted the same tactics he had deployed against the Portuguese to harass the Dutch. In 1660 his army is known to have been in the vicinity of Dutch-held Trincomalee, and seized the Englishman Robert Knox
. Knox subsequently moved to Senkadagala
and lived there until the 1680s; his writings provide one of the best sources on the Kandyan kingdom in the 17th century. Rajasingha may also have considered involving the French in Sri Lankan politics in an attempt to get yet another European power to displace the Dutch http://www.blessedjosephvaz.com/apostolate_in_kandy.htm
In Kandy, Rajasingha faced discontented nobles and a populace who had always been opposed to the alliance with the Dutch. The internal situation became so unstable that for a while Rajasingha was forced to abandon the palace and allow rebels to seize control of Sengkadagala, and even suspended the annual Perahara. In 1664, he faced open rebellion from a noble known as Ambanwela Rala, and, unable in his fury to think of a suitable punishment, sent him to the Dutch, assuming they would execute him as a Kandyan noble. It was a mistake — Ambanwela Rala traded his knowledge of the workings of Kandy for a large coconut estate in Dutch territory and died a rich man http://www.lankalibrary.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=990&highlight=rajasimha.
Despite this the king managed to retain control of the crown and expanded the sacred precinct of Kandy, the Dalada Maligawa, adding an extra storey to the central building http://www.sridaladamaligawa.lk/english/tooth_relic_in3.html.
The situation inside the Kandyan kingdom became increasingly unstable and during Rajasingha's reign many of the powerful families that came to dominate Kandyan politics in the 18th century acquired greater power. It is interesting to note that attempts on Rajasingha's life appear to have been rather commonplace http://www.defonseka.com/k24.htm#_ftnref1. Rajasingha's reign also saw a gradual diminution of the Kandyan's dreams of reuniting Sri Lanka under a single, native, crown.
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Rajasingha requested Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
aid to help expel the Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
from the island, which they successfully did in 1656. By this time however it had become clear to the Kandyans that the Dutch not only intended to expel the Portuguese but to replace them as the major colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
power on the island, and from 1645 onwards Rajasingha was engaged in sporadic warfare with his erstwhile allies.
Birth and early life
Rajasingha was the son of Senarat (Senarath), the second ruler of the kingdom of Kandy, based at the city of Senkadagala (modern KandyKandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
) in Sri Lanka's mountainous interior. Since the Portuguese annexation of much of Sri Lanka's coastal areas the kingdom had represented the sole independent native polity on the island. Near incessant warfare had significantly embittered the Kandyans towards the Portuguese; furthermore the brief success of the warlike kingdom of Sitawaka a century earlier had convinced many in the kingdom that the total expulsion of the colonial power was a distinct possibility.
As a young man Rajasingha participated in the 1612 counter-offensive that routed a Portuguese invasion into Kandyan territory.
Rajasingha succeeded his father to the throne in 1634 (1629 in some sources)
Early Reign: The Arrival of the Dutch
Rajasingha's father had long courted the Dutch as a potential ally against the Portuguese. A treaty had been signed between Kandy and Dutch envoy Marcelis Boschouwer but had not amounted to much. Soon after Rajasingha's accession however the Dutch, now firmly established in BataviaJakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, put Portuguese Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
under a blockade. On 28 March 1638, Rajasingha led his army to victory against the Portuguese forces at Gannoruwa
Battle of Gannoruwa
The Battle of Gannoruwa was a battle of the Sinhalese–Portuguese War fought in 1638 between the occupying Portuguese forces and the Sinhalese King's army at Gannoruwa in the District of Kandy, Sri Lanka. The Portuguese had attempted three times without success to capture the Kingdom of Kandy, in...
. Soon after this, Rajasingha sent a request for aid to the admiral Adam Westerwolt and by 23 May 1638 had signed an extensive military and trade treaty with them http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.htmlhttp://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH11Df02.html.
The Dutch seized Batticaloa
Batticaloa
Batticaloa is a city in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. It is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. It is on the east coast, south by south east of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island.-Etymology:...
on 18 May 1639 and a joint Kandyan-Dutch campaign began to make inroads into Portugal's lowland territories. The alliance was however deeply unpopular with the inhabitants of Kandy http://www.sridaladamaligawa.lk/english/perahara_in2.html.
Trincomalee
Trincomalee is a port city in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and lies on the east coast of the island, about 113 miles south of Jaffna. It has a population of approximately 100,000 . The city is built on a peninsula, which divides the inner and outer harbours. Overlooking the Kottiyar Bay,...
had long been lost, first to the Jaffna Kingdom
Jaffna Kingdom
The Jaffna kingdom , also known as Kingdom of Aryacakravarti, of modern northern Sri Lanka was a historic monarchy that came into existence around the town of Jaffna on the Jaffna peninsula after the invasion of Magha, who is said to have been from Kalinga, in India...
and then to the Portuguese), and Rajasingha was eager to acquire it as soon as possible. The Dutch, however, demurred, demanding full payment for their assistance in displacing the Portuguese. Despite a rising suspicion that the Dutch were not in Sri Lanka to expel the Portuguese, so much as to replace them, the alliance was one that was too valuable for Rajasingha to simply cancel, and joint Dutch-Kandyan efforts resulted in the seizure of Galle
Galle
Galle is a city situated on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka, 119 km from Colombo. Galle is the capital city of Southern Province of Sri Lanka and it lies in Galle District....
on 13 March 1640 http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html and the restriction of Portuguese power to the west coast of Sri Lanka by 1641.
The slow end of the Eighty Year's War however soon resulted in a truce being called between Dutch and Portuguese forces in Sri Lanka (the crowns of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
were united between 1580–1640) sometime between 1641 and 1645. Rajasinga, and many of his advisers, furiously concluded that the Dutch intended to carve Sri Lanka up with the Portuguese, to the detriment of native power. The alliance of 1638 came to an abrupt end and Kandy launched into what was to be a hundred years of intermittent warfare with the Dutch http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html.
The period between 1645 and 1649 saw the Kandyan adopting a scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
policy in eastern Sri Lanka. Capturing and annexing Dutch held territory was out of the question for the Kandyans who could muster neither the fire power nor the man power for an occupation. Nevertheless Rajasingha's policy of intentionally burning crops and depopulation villages drove the Dutch to the negotiating table and in 1649 and the Kandyan-Dutch alliance was resurrected, albeit on slightly different terms http://www.kandyhotels.com/kandy/about_kandy/late_kings/index.html.
Late Reign: Stalemate
Treaty of Münster
Treaty of Münster may refer to:* Peace of Münster, a treaty between the Dutch Republic and Spain signed in January 1648 ending the Eighty Years' War...
had secured Dutch independence in Europe in 1648 and they could now pursue colonial and mercantile expansion without fighting a ruinous war on their doorstep simultaneously. In contrast the kingdom of Kandy was exhausted by constant war, and still without access to Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and the lowlands. Furthermore it had limited resources, and was increasingly wracked by internal instability.
Nevertheless from 1652 joint Kandyan-Dutch forces waged an increasingly brutal war against Portuguese strongholds along the coast. During this time Rajasingha had to request support from the sub-king — Patabanda — of Koggala http://www.defonseka.com/k24.htm#_ftnref1, which suggests that the Kandyan kingdom had by this time become very decentralised, and that local leaders held considerable power.
The landlocked Kandyans were successful in the inland area of the Korales and Sabaragamuwa but relied heavily on Dutch sea power. Accordingly in August 1655 a large Dutch fleet commanded by Gerard Pietersz. Hulft
Gerard Pietersz. Hulft
Gerard Pietersz. Hulft , was a friendly and intelligent Dutch general. In 1655 he was sent with a fleet to Ceylon and died in action.-Life:...
arrived and the war entered its final phase with the siege by land and sea of the Portuguese colonial capital Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
. By this point Rajasingha did not trust the Dutch at all and insisted that the city should be ceded to the Kandyan the moment it fell. When this happened in 1656, however, the Dutch shut the gates and left the Kandyans in the hinterlands. Faced with what he saw as yet another example of Dutch perfidy, Rajasingha repeated his devastations of the mid-1640s in the hinterlands of Colombo and withdrew to Kandy. The Dutch in the meanwhile secured power over the kingdom of Jaffna in 1658 and essentially replaced the Portuguese as Kandy's natural enemy on the island.
Safe in his mountain fastness Rajasingha now adopted the same tactics he had deployed against the Portuguese to harass the Dutch. In 1660 his army is known to have been in the vicinity of Dutch-held Trincomalee, and seized the Englishman Robert Knox
Robert Knox
Robert Knox was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist and zoologist. He was the most popular lecturer in anatomy in Edinburgh before his involvement in the Burke and Hare body-snatching case. This ruined his career, and a later move to London did not improve matters...
. Knox subsequently moved to Senkadagala
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
and lived there until the 1680s; his writings provide one of the best sources on the Kandyan kingdom in the 17th century. Rajasingha may also have considered involving the French in Sri Lankan politics in an attempt to get yet another European power to displace the Dutch http://www.blessedjosephvaz.com/apostolate_in_kandy.htm
In Kandy, Rajasingha faced discontented nobles and a populace who had always been opposed to the alliance with the Dutch. The internal situation became so unstable that for a while Rajasingha was forced to abandon the palace and allow rebels to seize control of Sengkadagala, and even suspended the annual Perahara. In 1664, he faced open rebellion from a noble known as Ambanwela Rala, and, unable in his fury to think of a suitable punishment, sent him to the Dutch, assuming they would execute him as a Kandyan noble. It was a mistake — Ambanwela Rala traded his knowledge of the workings of Kandy for a large coconut estate in Dutch territory and died a rich man http://www.lankalibrary.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=990&highlight=rajasimha.
Despite this the king managed to retain control of the crown and expanded the sacred precinct of Kandy, the Dalada Maligawa, adding an extra storey to the central building http://www.sridaladamaligawa.lk/english/tooth_relic_in3.html.
Significance
The single most important trend of Rajasingha's long reign was the replacement of the Portuguese by the Dutch. The strategy of bringing in one European power to help fend off another had backfired spectacularly, and the Kandyan kingdom found itself in much the same position as it had been with the Portuguese. Despite the Dutch being less determined to convert the mass populace and impose their cultural dominance, Europeans increasingly came to be seen as rapacious adventurers who were simply incapable of honouring their deals.The situation inside the Kandyan kingdom became increasingly unstable and during Rajasingha's reign many of the powerful families that came to dominate Kandyan politics in the 18th century acquired greater power. It is interesting to note that attempts on Rajasingha's life appear to have been rather commonplace http://www.defonseka.com/k24.htm#_ftnref1. Rajasingha's reign also saw a gradual diminution of the Kandyan's dreams of reuniting Sri Lanka under a single, native, crown.