The Private Life of an Eastern King by William Knighton is a vivid, firsthand account of life within the royal court of King Nasir-ud-Din Haidar, the ruler of the Indian princely state of Oudh (Awadh) in the early 19th century. Originally published in 1855, the book aims to provide a rare and revealing glimpse into the private affairs, intrigues, and excesses of an Eastern monarch during British colonial rule in India.
Knighton, who served as an official within the king's palace, offers a narrative that combines personal observation with political commentary. The king is portrayed as a ruler indulging in opulence, superstition, and erratic behavior. The court, filled with intrigue, luxury, and moral decay, serves as a metaphor for the decline of native rule and the justification for British intervention.
The companion piece, Elihu Jan's Story or The Private Life of an Eastern Queen, complements the original work by focusing on the experiences of the women in the royal household, especially the queen. This part of the book offers insight into the secluded and restricted lives of royal women in purdah (seclusion), highlighting the emotional, social, and cultural dimensions of their existence.
William Knighton (e-1824-1900) was a British colonial official, journalist, and author whose writings provide vivid accounts of life in British-ruled India and Sri Lanka during the 19th century. His most renowned work, The Private Life of an Eastern King, published in 1855, offers an intimate portrayal of the court of King Nussir-u-Deen of Oudh (now part of Uttar Pradesh, India). The narrative, presented from the perspective of an anonymous British member of the king's household, depicts the monarch as indulgent and paranoid, highlighting the opulence and moral decay of his court.
Knighton's career in South Asia began in 1842 when he traveled to Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) to manage a coffee plantation owned by his uncle. Finding plantation life unfulfilling, he transitioned into journalism, becoming the editor of the Colombo Herald. He later moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he worked as a journalist, writer, and professor of philosophy. His literary contributions include Forest Life in Ceylon (1847), Tropical Sketches (1855), and Elihu Jan's Story; or, The Private Life of an Eastern Queen (1865), the latter serving as a companion piece to his earlier work on King Nussir-u-Deen.
In addition to his writing, Knighton held administrative positions within the British colonial government, notably serving as Assistant Commissioner in Oudh. After returning to England in 1867, he faced personal tragedies, including the deaths of his son and first wife due to tuberculosis. He later remarried a widow who had significant interests in an Australian sheep station. Knighton's legacy endures through his detail and candid accounts of colonial life, which continue to be valuable resources for historians and scholars studying the British Empire's presence in South Asia.
WILLIAM KNIGHTON, son of Richard I. Knigliton and a member of the same family as his namesake Sir William Knighton, Keeper of the Privy Purse to George IV, was born in Dublin in 1833-4. He was educated at Glasgow and before he was twenty years of age became head master of the Normal School at Colombo. While in Ceylon he became the first Honorary Secretary of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and a partner in a coffee plantation. These activities are reflected in two books written by him at the time: A History of Ceylon derived from native Chronicles, and Forest Life in Ceylon, 1854, in which he describes some of his own experiences.
From Colombo he went to Calcutta as Professor of History and Logic at the Hindu College. In 1855 The Private Life of an Eastern King was published, and in 1860 Knighton was appointed by Lord Canning to the Oudh Commission, from which he retired in 1868. The preface of Elihu Jan's Story is dated from the Himalaya Club, Mussoorie, June 1864, and Knighton had also contributed Village Life in Oudh' to Fraser's Magazine. In 1883 he married Charlotte, daughter of Sir William Drake, K.C.B., member of the Legislative Council of the Cape of Good Hope, and on March 31, 1900, he died at St. Leonards, aged 66.1 Literary interests continued to engage much of Knighton's time after his retirement from India. In 1887 he was Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, London, and about this time wrote Struggles for Life-a book which attracted considerable notice not only in London but also in Paris and Berlin. In 1889 he was selected to unveil the statue created to the memory of Shakespeare in Paris, where he was Vice-President of the International Literary and Artistic Society, and he also received the degrees of M.A., Ph.D., and LL.D. from Giessen University.
In addition to the books already mentioned, William Knighton was the author of Tropical Sketches; or Reminis-cences of an Indian Journalist (2 vols.), Edgar Barton. An Autobiographical Novel (3 vols.), European Turkey as it is (1854), Training in Streets and Schools.
It is more than sixty years since Oudlı became a province of British India, and the old days of the Oudlı kingdom are rapidly passing into oblivion. Lucknow is studded with memorials of the nawabs and kings in brick and plaster, but the present generation has for the most part forgotten even the names of their builders, and Badshahi Waqt-the time of the kingship-has become a synonym for the distant past.
The two books republished in this volume have long been difficult to obtain, and are of peculiar interest because they give a vivid and intimate picture of the character of the Lucknow court. There are many other accounts of the court of Oudh, but the visitors to whom we owe them saw only the externals of royalty-the king was always on his best behaviour. Knighton, on the other hand, gives us a picture of Nasiru-d-din and Wajid Ali Shah as they appeared to their own chosen companions and servants.
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