Nizams Daughters

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The Nizam’s Daughters is a work of fiction: the princely state of Chintal never existed. However, the story is firmly rooted in what was happening in India just after Waterloo in the build-up to the third Maratha war. And Chintal (even with its singular rajah) is, I would maintain, not untypical of the minor princely states whose precarious existence depended increasingly on the Honourable East India Company. They were states where young Englishmen like Hervey — as soldiers, administrators or tutors to the royal household — often had disproportion-ate influence.

India had its own military language, of course, and in this story I use some of that language, though in a way, I trust, that will not bar understanding if the words are unfamiliar. But just a few words of explanation of the different terms used by the Honourable East India Company’s army — and others — may be of help. The list is by no means exhaustive, and it must be remembered that terms (and spelling) varied between the Company’s three ‘presidencies’ (Bengal, Madras, Bombay), and were in unofficial use long before being formalized:

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