1934: When our last King’s regalia came home
Soon after the fall of the Sinhala Kingdom in 1815, the British plundered [as ‘spoils of war’] our Royal treasures and spirited them away to England. The most valuable of these were the throne of the King of Tri Sinhale, his royal crown and golden ceremonial sword. The throne was installed in Windsor Castle and as oral history has it, old Queen Victoria sat on it at Royal investitures when she awarded certain Royal honours.
The Duke’s speech before unveiling the Royal Throne at the Magul Maduwa in Kandy. Pic courtesy Somasiri Devendra
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the return of the plundered regalia to ‘Ceylon’ in 1934. It is a matter of great sadness, and typical of the cavalier attitude to our recent history, that no institution responsible for antiquities, history or culture seems to have thought of commemorating this historic event. As one of the few “eye witnesses” (albeit as a four-year-old) I have taken upon myself the responsibility of giving an, admittedly hazy account of this historic event.
The Labour government, then in power in Britain had already accepted the recommendations of the Donoughmore Commission and granted Universal Suffrage to its subjects in Ceylon in 1933. An imaginative British bureaucrat in the Colonial Office seems to have had a brilliant idea. This was to return our last king’s regalia to Ceylon – thus symbolising the grant of (almost) sovereignty to its people. This recommendation was accepted and the regalia was shipped to Ceylon, on HMS ‘Kent’, escorted by the Royal Duke of Gloucester.
There was great jubilation in Sri Lanka and a crowd of several thousands gathered at the harbour and their fervent ‘Sadhus’ rent the air as the regalia touched our soil, a century and half since its shameful plunder. Popular versifiers had a great time serenading this event. I remember my father speaking of one such ‘kavi kolay’ that went :
“Sinhaasanay mey apa raaja wansa yay hee…” [Here comes the Lion Throne of our Royal clan]
I confess that I know little of how the regalia came to grace the Colombo Museum – but my historian father related that there was a strong claim from the aristocracy and commonalty of Kandy to instal them in the Pattirippuwa of the Dalada Maligawa. As this claim did have some justice, it was decided as a symbolic gesture to display the Throne for a few days at the Magul Maduwa (Royal Audience Hall) in Kandy. This could not, however, be a permanent arrangement as security would have been a problem, as was apparent from the huge crowds that thronged the town to see the Royal Throne they had lost. To their great sorrow the Throne was taken back to Colombo and placed on permanent display at the Colombo Museum (far more secure in the Colonial era than it seems to be today) !
Fourteen years later, on Independence Day, February 4, 1948, ‘our’ Throne was mounted on a dais to symbolize our regained Independence, behind our Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake and the very same Duke of Gloucester who had brought it back to Ceylon in 1934.
I now descend from the sublime to the ridiculous. My parents had decided to join the throngs at the harbour to welcome the Royal Regalia. As their four-year-old would have been a nuisance, I was, therefore, left at my grandparents’ home in rural Dehiwala to keep me out of mishaps. I, however, fulfilled their direst fears. On their return, they found me with a terrific gash from sliding downhill on a slope scattered with shards of glass. It was only a flesh wound, treated with liberal application of searingly vicious Iodine. The scar, however, yet remains as a very personal, and anatomical memento ensuring that I will forever remember the day when ‘our’ Royal Throne came back home.