A REMARKABLE WOMAN RULER.

Patea Mail, Volume XXXIV, 5 June 1911, Page 1

A REMARKABLE WOMAN RULER.

The Coronation visit to England of that remarkable Indian chief, her Highness the Begum of Bhopal, is said to he, directly due to the encouragement of King George, who was greatly interested in her during Ids Indian tour as Prince of Wales.

When the Begum was presented to bis Majesty at. the Indore Durbar, he conferred on her the insignia of the Grand Commander of the Indian Empire, and she was the 'first woman in India to receive that honor. Dn that occasion (lie Begum appeared before King George with her face entirely hidden behind a bnrka of a light blue material, while her head was crowned in gold and her small costume draped in a deeper shade of blue a costume which she is expected to wear lit the Corona (ion ceremony. This interesting woman is. in a number of ways, unique among her sex. Bhopal is (he only state in the world where the ruler must always be a woman. In former days the husbands or the Begums occupied a curiously unimportant position in the State, and were freely changed as the fancy of the ruler or Die supposed necessities of her politics happened to require. Thu present- Begum is the only living woman ruler who ha- been in action with her own troops. During a pilgrimage to ■Mecca site and her bodyguard were attacked by Arabs, whom she repulsed after a bloody encounter. Her Slate of Bhopal is famed throughout India for its bn ally. At the height of the Mutiny the Begum of Unit time had to face her rebel army, which gathered uniside her palace and elamon-d to he led against the British. The Begum acquiesced, but at nightfall she contrived to disarm the whole of the rebels, to the number of 9000 men. And long before tiffs, as far back as 1778, Bhopal was the only power in all India which showed itself to be friendly to Lie rat Britain. The Begum’s presence at the Coronation will, therefore, be appropriate in the extreme.