Prince `Abbás Mírzá was now a sad and broken man. Rash actions forced upon him had brought total desolation. His modern army was shattered. Because he knew of the intrigues that plagued his father's court, and to make certain that his eldest son would not be left undefended, he asked for guarantees from the Tsar, which were readily given. After this ordeal of defeat and submission Prince `Abbás Mírzá did not live long. He died at the age of forty-five, and a year later his father followed him to the grave. The eldest son of `Abbás Mírzá, named heir-apparent by Fatḥ-`Alí [_Sh_]áh, came into his heritage by a combination of the assured support of Britain and Russia, and the wise strategy of Qá'im-Maqám. Sir John Campbell, the British Minister in Ṭihrán, and Sir Henry Lindesay Bethune, who took command of the forces loyal to the son of `Abbás Mírzá, brought him safely from Tabríz to Ṭihrán. Qá'im-Maqám, in the meantime, secured the backing of influential men in the capital, where another son of the late king had styled himself `Adil [_Sh_]áh[K] and was claiming the throne. But his reign was brief, and soon Muḥammad [_Sh_]áh, the heir-apparent, was well entrenched in Ṭihrán, for Sir Henry Lindesay Bethune (whom a Persian historian calls Mr. Lenzi) easily routed other pretenders.[8] [Footnote K: In reality `Alí-[_Sh_]áh, the Ẓillu's-Sulṭán, not to be confused with Prince Sulṭán Mas`úd Mírzá, the Governor-General of Iṣfahán, who had the same title in later years.] Muḥammad [_Sh_]áh did not wish to seem beholden to the British officials who had helped him to his throne, nor did he show much gratitude to Qá'im-Maqám, the architect of his victory. Within a year he contrived the death of that great minister who had served him and his father so well. By the death of Qá'im-Maqám, treacherously designed, Írán sustained a tremendous and irreparable loss. Qá'im-Maqám was not only a brilliant statesman, but also a master of prose whose style rescued the language from encrusted artificialities.[L] [Footnote L: See Balyuzi, _`Abdu'l-Bahá_, p. 373 and note.] His successor as the Grand Vizier was Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí, a man ignorant and devoid of all graces, affecting deep piety. This is how Sir Henry Layard[9] saw him in 1840: