I say the ruling princes of India. For besides the reigning families there were certain ex-ruling Houses {8} who furnished leaders and rallying-names to the revolt. The Muhammadan lapsed dynasties were represented in the Mutiny by the titular majesty of the King of Delhi and his sons. The great Hindu power, the Marathas, who seemed destined in the last century to build up an indigenous Indian empire out of the wreck of the Muhammadan dynasties, stood forward against us in the persons of Nana Sahib the adopted son of the deposed Peshwa, and his military follower Tantia Topi. The lesser ex-ruling Houses, whose states had come under the British Government on failure of direct male heirs, supplied an equally vindictive and a more heroic leader in the Rani or pensioned princess of Jhansi. But the great body of the reigning Feudatories in India held aloof from the Mutiny. Many of them cast in their lot with us in our hour of direst need. The story of the loyal Punjab Chiefs who helped us to retake Delhi is known to all Englishmen. But the succour, the shelter, the aid, rendered by scores of the Native Princes throughout India, find but a passing mention in history. Of the 150 principal Feudatories and Chiefs, we can count the disloyal ones on the fingers of one hand. Local leaders, like Koer Singh the Behar landholder, were mostly bankrupt or ruined men. One result of the Mutiny of 1857 was to profoundly modify the attitude of the British Government to the Native Princes. The East India Company had regarded them as semi-foreign allies; of whom the more powerful were to be bound tightly by treaties {9} and overawed by subsidiary troops; while the weaker should be absorbed into the British dominions whenever a just occasion arose. This system of annexation was 'the one clear and direct course' deliberately laid down by the East India Company's Government in 1841. When the Queen assumed the direct control of India, her first act was to reverse that policy. In solemn words she assured the loyal Princes and Chiefs of her desire to maintain their rule over their own States. The Feudatories became thenceforward an integral part of the British Empire of India, with a clearly defined position, intermediate between the Sovereign and the native nobility in our own provinces.