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Explore Rani Dakno's legacy, a Rajput beauty married to Maharaja Sher Singh, her tragic end with son Sahdev Singh in British captivity.

DULEEP SINGH, MAHARAJA (1838-1893), the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab, was born at Lahore on 6 September 1838, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. On 18 September 1843, at the age of five, he was, after the murder of Maharaja Sher Singh, proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab with his mother, MaharanIJind Kaur, as his Regent. The country was in a state of disorder and the army had become all powerful. Though little Duleep Singh attended all the council meetings seated on the royal throne, the real authority had passed from the palace to the cantonment and the military panchayats. The English, who had been watching the happenings in the Sikh State with more than a neighbour`s interest, were looking for an opportunity to strike and penetrate into the Punjab.

GUISE, WALTER (d. 1857), tutor to Maharaja Duleep Singh from 1850 to 1853 at Fatehgarh in present day Uttar Pradesh to which place the young prince had been taken by the British after the occupation of the Punjab. In contemporary records,he has been described as "a very good fellow, patient and attentive, of mild manners and gentlemanly appearance and demeanour." Before Duleep Singh was to convert to Christianity, Guise was assigned to instruct him in the gospel as well, and he was one of those who signed the register of witnesses to the baptism of Maharaja Duleep Singh. In 1853, Walter Guise received an offer from an indigo planter near Fatehgarh to take charge of his plantation as a partner. When in 1857 the Maharaja`s house at Fatehgarh was pillaged and most inmates killed by mutineers, Walter Guise was among the Europeans who lost their lives.