BHOPAL. An interesting letter of 1898 signed by the Viceroy, Lord Elgin

A letter written on two sides of a bifolium enbossed in gold with the royal arms used by the Viceroy, dated Simla The 13th October 1898  and signed Elgin. The manuscript letter is written in neat secretarial hand and addressed to Her Highness Nawab Shah Jahan Begam, G.C.S.I., C.I. thanking her for a recent letter which is presumed to have asked to visit the Viceroy for a meeting at Simla before he departed for England. His Excellency offers Her Highness an alternative: My train is timed to arrive at Cawnpore at 4p.m. on the 9th November, and will stop there about half an hour. Should the time and place be convenient yo Your Highness, the necessary arrangements for our meeting there will be made. We do not know whether the Begam took up this invitation but note that today it is a seven hour train journey from Bhopal to Cawnpore! The letter is bound with four Persian letters in a contemporary simple card folder. aug13/3

Another letter we handled from Elgin’s successor Lord Curzon gave a very similar response to a similar request from the Begam.