With the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom, the Kandyan Convention, ceremonially signed on March 10, 1815, completed the annexation of the island to the British Empire. This brought an end to the rule of Lankan Royalty.

British propaganda successfully portrayed King Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe as a “cruel Tamil tyrant” despite evidence of his achievements in developing Kandy

How did the British succeed in conquering Kandy when the others failed? To learn from the insights, we browsed through once again the pages of “The Doomed King: A Requiem for Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe”, where the eminent author/anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere had made an extensive study of how the conquest was made possible.

Being trounced roundly during their only military expedition conducted in 1802 to capture the Kandyan Kingdom, the British had ruled out further military attempts. But having captured the Maritime Province from the Dutch in 1796, the existence of an independent kingdom in Central Sri Lanka was viewed as a threat to their imperial aspirations when John D’Oyly, a tax collector for the British government in Southern Sri Lanka turned master-spy, replaced military warfare with the dynamics of espionage in the conquering of Kandy.

A spy-system aimed entirely at perpetrating a cruel image of the reigning King Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe, the author Obeyesekere writes that at the end of the day “not only among the British but there were natives too who believed that the king was a cruel Tamil tyrant and the British saved the nation from a brutal king,” a representation that dismayed the author driving him to resurrect his image.

The loss of a large number of soldiers, along with the financial costs of the British expedition to Kandy, had convinced D’Oyly that there were alternative ways of subjugating the Kandyan Kingdom. Having arrived in Ceylon in 1801 at the age of 27 years, armed with a Matriculation from Corpus Christ College, Cambridge (1793) and BA and MA qualifications, he was posted to the South as a Revenue officer of the Ceylon Civil Service. While serving in Matara, he learnt Sinhala under the scholar monk Karatota Dhammarama of Veragampitiya (1803-1805) when he, knowingly or unknowingly, trained himself for the role of a master spy.

Author Obeyesekere, quoting historian Paul E. Pieris, wrote, “The English treated Karatota with much consideration as a likely agent for destroying the King’s influence among the Sinhalese in the South and he enjoyed a great reputation for scholarship.”

By 1805, the Sinhala-speaking D’Oyly was made the Government’s Chief Translator. His linguistic skills and the knack he displayed for manipulations with the Kandyan Chieftains led Governor Maitland to appoint him the Intelligence Chief. Author Obeyesekere found D’Oyly’s diaries he maintained from 1810-1815 (with some blank spaces in between) a great source of information which revealed the systematic surveillance and the gradual undermining of the Kandyan Kingdom without the use of weapons until the right moment arrived.

Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe governed the Provinces of his Kingdom through the nobility, such as Pilimathalawa, Molligoda, Ehelepola and Puswella. But when his relations with them went sour, he got into the habit of transferring them from one Province to another, especially to areas vulnerable to British influence.

Ehelepola entered the scene when he succeeded as the First Adigar in 1811, on the execution of Pilimathalawa. Ehelepola imagined he would become the next king with the help of the British without realising that there was no space for a Kandyan king in the British scheme of things. D’Oyly, while building a friendship with Ehelepola, who was holding the highest position in the kingdom next to the King, allowed him to fancy himself as the next king and carried on his discourse with him initially through mediators, thereafter via correspondence. And on his escape from Kandy, through direct meetings.

Ultimately, having been used by D’Oyly, he cut a sorry figure on being discovered as having suspected designs on the new colonial government. He was imprisoned and banished by the British to Mauritius, where he spent the rest of his life.

D’Oyly’s spy network covered influential “Mudaliyars” who provided direct information to D’Oyly or who communicated vital information gathered by their agents. What was striking was that the network ranged from those of the highest strata of society, such as provincial governors or Disawas, to those of varied castes. He also had several Javanese Tamil Muslims (Tambi Mudaliya of Chilaw) and monks in his secret service, who, like the Muslims, had no requirement of permission of the King to move from place to place. In fact, “a monk gave details of the firearms being collected in Kandy with no qualms that he is undermining the independence of Kandy”. With the spy-maestro getting into full gear, he even resorted to playing the racist card, identifying the King and family members as Malabars. And therefore were outsiders!!!

D’Oyly’s secret service was regarded so perfect by now that a remark had been made that he, while stationed in Colombo, was even able to foretell the King’s movements within the kingdom. The author, however, interjects that no spy system is impeccable as D’Oyly’s informants had also been guessing their way around.

The news of the gruesome execution of Ehelepola’s family was conveyed to D’Oyly by Major Davie, who was taken prisoner during the 1803 war in Kandy. All efforts to find the whereabouts of the British prisoner proved futile. The King moved him from place to place, and D’Oyly’s spy-ring failed to get a clue of his location.

What dismayed Obeyesekere was the impact of British propaganda and the bad press the King received as a result, even from scholars. “Ingirisi Hatana,” a paean of praise, on the other hand, confirmed the King’s obsession with the expansion and embellishments of his cosmic city—Senkadagala Nuwara with mansions, the “Kiri Muhuda”, and the Paththirippuwa that rose in the shape of a tall parasol. According to these verses, the King was a compulsive builder of dams, ponds and tanks, and by 1813, he had completed an irrigation reservoir near Pallekele.

Contrary to the image bult by the British, the King who ascended the throne at the age of 16 years and reigned from 1798-1815, had completed his cosmic city in 1812 and “remained popular with some of the aristocrats and minor officials in the four Korales which showed British influence but who were not enticed by D’Oyly.” It had been these supporters of the King, author Obeyesekere adds, who participated in the 1817-1818 rebellion against the British.

However, it is acknowledged that D’Oyly had some sympathy for the Kandyan aspirations and hence, when drafting the Treaty, showed his commitment to foster the “Religion of Boodoo”, an idea for which he found little support in the Protestant-dominated Britain.

It had also been mentioned in the hypothesis that D’Oyly, who remained single, might have been gay as suggested by Brendon and Yasmine Gooneratne in their “This Instructable Englishman”. However, while he was serving in the South as a young officer, D’Oyly had been reprimanded by his Home Government for gifting state land to the famed Sinhala poetess Gajaman Nona as requested by her, an episode which had been given a romantic twist by some historians.

Sir James Mackintosh, a school mate of D’Oyly, while on a visit to then Ceylon in 1810, had “sorrowfully” recorded that D’Oyly had “almost become a native in his habits of life.” D’Oyly never returned to his home country despite repeated requests from his mother to come back and enter matrimony. Finally, in 1817, she had suggested a marriage in Ceylon when his return seemed unlikely.

He, however, settled down in Kandy after the completion of his task, had an untimely death in 1824 at the age of 50 years and was buried at the Garrison Cemetery in Kandy.