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How Kandy came under British rule
British forces occupied Kandy on 14 February 1815, and the king was captured four days later, according to H. W. Codrington’s historical account. He was the last king of the Nayakkar dynasty; Sri Lanka’s National Institute of Education identifies his capture and custody in 1815 with the end of the kingdom.
In March 1815, British authorities and Kandyan chiefs signed the Kandyan Convention. The Sri Lanka Department of National Archives summarizes Article 4 as transferring Kandyan sovereignty to the British Empire, while Article 5 promised protection for the Buddhist Order and its customs. The agreement was not a personal pact signed by the king: it was negotiated between the British and the chiefs. Sri Lanka Department of National Archives: 1815 Convention; National Institute of Education, History Teacher’s Guide.
Why the king was removed
The Convention formalized the political change that followed his capture: Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was deposed, and his dynasty was excluded from the throne, as Codrington’s account relates. The British could therefore rule Kandy without restoring the Nayakkar monarchy. Historian Robert Aldrich’s 2026 chapter describes the removal of the king and dynasty as enabling British monarchy and viceregal representatives to replace Kandy’s monarchy and extend royal power across the island. Cambridge University Press: “The last king in Ceylon”.
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The political settlement and the king’s fate are related but distinct. The Convention transferred sovereignty; capture made him a prisoner; sending him away kept him from returning to rule in Kandy. The available accounts establish that sequence, but do not establish whether Vellore was selected for security, administrative convenience, or another specific reason.
How he reached Vellore
A 1920 article, “The Kandyan Pensioners,” reports that Sri Vikrama Sinha, his mother, four wives, and a group of fifty were sent from Colombo to Madras aboard HMS Cornwallis, then transferred to Vellore in January 1816. This itinerary is reported by the historical article, not established here from a passenger manifest. “The Kandyan Pensioners,” Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, April 1920 (scan hosted by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts).
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How long his exile lasted
Historical accounts place Sri Vikrama Rajasinha’s death in Vellore in January 1832. Codrington gives the date as 30 January and his age as 52; Horace Hayman Wilson’s 1847 history independently places his death at Vellore in January 1832. The exact day and age should be understood as details reported by Codrington, rather than as findings from a primary death record. H. W. Codrington, “Chapter XI”; Horace Hayman Wilson, The History of British India, vol. 2 (1847).
His removal was part of a broader British expansion of power, not simply a change in the identity of Kandy’s ruler. Aldrich notes that rebellions and conspiracies followed in Ceylon between 1817 and 1848, though this context does not document the day-to-day conditions of the king’s confinement. The evidence supports the central explanation: after his deposition, British authorities held him outside Kandy until his death in Vellore.
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