1 JALAL-UD-DIN AKBER. 137
2 seraglio from {dbul. Muhammad Hakim Mirza, the king’s step-brother,
3 with his mother and sister, were allowed to remain at Kabul in charge of
4 the government of that country, under the tutelage of Mowjim Khan.
5 Mankot surrendered after a siege of six months, and Sikandar Shah was
6 permitted to retire to Bengal, leaving his son, Abdul Rahman Khan, as
7 hostage in the royal camp. The king, with Behram Khan, his regent, then
8 reached Ldhore. In the month of April, 1558, the marriage of Behram
9 Khan with Sulema Sultana Begum, niece of the late Emperor Himéytn,
10 was celebrated at Jalandar amidst great rejoicings and festivities, and the
11 ‘emperor honoured the nuptials with his presence. 7
12 Shah Abul Madli, the favourite noble of the late Hamdyin, who, it will be
13 remembered, had effected his escape from confinement at Léhore, having now
14 joined Kamdél Ghakkar, marched on an expedition to Kashmir, but they were
15 repulsed with great slaughter. Shah Abul Madli then repaired to Depal-
16 ptu, and, having joined Bahddur Khan, Sistani, excited a revolt, but was
17 unsuccessful aud fled beyond the Indus, and from thence to Gujrat and
18 Jamptr, but was seized by Khan Zaman and sent a State prisoner to Agra.
19 A difference now arose between the Emperor and Behram Khan Turk-
20 man, his able minister and general. The ward had treated his protector
21 with the utmost consideration, and endowed him with the highest powers.
22 But the protector insulted the prerogatives of royalty and committed ex-
23 cesses to which the young Akber, sensible of his obligations to the minister,
24 feigned to tolerate. Thus, on one occasion, during the emperor’s absence
25 on a hawking party, Behram Khan, without even the ceremony of taking
26 the king’s orders, caused Tardy Beg Khan, governor of Delhi, one of
27 Himdyun’s earliest and most devoted followers to be beheaded. Other
28 persons were also summarily executed by order of Behram Khan, to the
29 great disgust of the Chaghattai nobles. He also removed from office
30 Mullah Pir Muhammad, the king’s preceptor, and appointed another person,
31 devoted to his own “interests, in his place. One day, in an elephant fight,
32 one of. the royal elephants, pursued by its antagonist, rushed through the
33 ropes of the minister’s tents, and the accident was taken by him as a
34 personal affront, but he was appeased on protestations being made by the
35 king that no indignity was intended. On another occasion, a royal elephant,
36 having become unmanageable in the rutting season, attacked and killed an-
37 other belonging to the minister, who ordered the keeper of the former to be
38 put to death, much to the annoyance of the king. Soon after this, another
39 of the royal elephants ran furiously against a barge in which the minister
40 was taking his pleasure and almost upset it. Behram Khan thought this
41 was actually a design against his life, and caused the driver, who had been
42 made,over to him by the king, to be put to death. These transactions
43 tended to widen the breach between the emperor and the minister, who,
44 finding himself out of favor, marched against the Afghans of Bengal with
45 a view to establishing himself in that quarter. Before proceeding far,
46 however, he altered his plans and proceeded to Nagore, with the object
47 of making a pilgrimage to Mecca, but he gave up the notion and collected a
48 force with the view of establishing himself in the Panjab.
49 _ The king at last made an effort to deliver himself from the thraldom
50 in which he lived, and resolved to assert his rights by carrying on the
51 government of the country himself.
52 Accordingly, he sent Mir Abdul Latif Kazwini, his preceptor, to Beh-
53 ram Khan with the following message: “Till now, our mind has been
54 taken up with our education and the amusements of youth, and it was our
55 royal wifri Paty yroy adjidingmpietdbrasyafiairs of our
56 Hostile proceedings of
57 Shah Abul Maal.
58 A
59 B
60 &
61 Difference between
62 kber and his minister
63 ehram Khan.
64 Arrogance of Behram
65 han,
66 His fall.
67 riEora K@ gmail.com