On the decease of the late Maharajah Dowlut Rao Scindia without issue, his very youthful widow was left regent of the country; and she, with the concurrence of the chief persons of the Court of Gwalior, adopted a boy named Bhageerut Rao, who was forthwith seated on the guddee. As the new Maharajah was only eight years old, and his adoptive mother only thirteen, the Court became, of course, a focus of intrigue; the Maharanee being an instrument by turns in the hands of different parties, struggling with each other for the guardianship of the poor little Maharajah, during so promising a minority, while a very licentious army of 30,000 men threw its weight into either scale as it suited its convenience. The result was, that the country was rent in pieces by insurrections, plots, wide-spreading conspiracies, and assassinations.
The British Government being bound by its treaties with the late Rajah to protect his successor, and preserve his territories unviolated, the Governor-General could no longer overlook the fact, that the conduct of the authorities of Gwalior involved a virtual violation of the treaty. Lord Ellenborough, therefore, immediately ordered the advance of troops, sufficient, as he said, "to obtain guarantees for the future security of the Company's subjects on the common frontier of the two states; to protect the person of the Rajah, to quell disturbances within his Highness's territories, and to chastise all who shall remain in disobedience."
The Indian Army accordingly left Agra, between the 12th and 18th of December, 1843, under the command of Major-General Sir Hugh Gough, and accompanied by Lord Ellenborough in person. At the same time another division, under Major-General Grey, advanced upon Gwalior from Bundlecund. The main army crossed the Chumbul on the 23rd, and the Kohuree river on the 29th of December, in three columns, at points considerably distant from each other, and took up their position, by eight o'clock on the morning of that day, about a mile in
