Sophia: Suffragette Princess

London, November the 18th, 1910.

In this building, a group of women were about to

demand the vote in their most impassioned protest yet...

..a protest so brutal, it would be remembered as Black Friday.

This place was jam-packed with suffragettes festooned with

enormous banners screaming slogans like Deeds Not Words,

Arise! Go Forth & Conquer.

And, though the women didn't know it at the time,

they were about to make history.

Led by the formidable Emmeline Pankhurst,

they were preparing to march on Parliament...

..to confront the Prime Minister.

But behind Emmeline, one suffragette stood out,

a brown face in a sea of white.

Her name was Sophia Duleep Singh

and, in 1910, she was as close to an international celebrity

as it was possible to be,

a princess of the Punjab, goddaughter of Queen Victoria

and revolutionary fighter for equality and justice.

As a political journalist, I thought I knew

the story of the suffragettes,

but I didn't know about a woman,

a descendent of Indian royalty, who was pivotal

in the struggle that helped shift the balance of power in Britain.

Order, order!

Sophia was an extraordinary woman who took on the giants

of male Edwardian society with an unrelenting ferocity.

Well, Winston Churchill, he doesn't take kindly to being written to

by a suffragette with her rank and her background.

He's humiliated, he's embarrassed, he's annoyed.

I've spent the last five years uncovering Sophia's life

and I've come to believe that

she's one of the most inspirational figures in British politics.

Life changed for us.

And it changed because of people like Sophia.

The granddaughter of the greatest Sikh Maharajah in history,

she rebelled against her genteel upbringing to fight

for the ideals of her Indian forefathers.

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh carries that Sikh ideology

of righteousness, helping the weak and the oppressed.

In the week when Sikhs across the world are celebrating the birth

of their founder, Guru Nanak,

this is the story of their warrior princess.

It was to the privileged world of the aristocracy that

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was born in the Summer of 1876.

She spent her childhood in a Suffolk mansion known as Elveden.

'The house now belongs to the 4th Earl of Iveagh, Edward Guinness.'

Oh, look at this! What a beautiful room.

This is the house that Duleep Singh built.

This is what it would have looked like when Sophia lived here?

That's absolutely right and the children would have lived

on the top floor, I believe, with the governess.

Sophia was one of seven children.

Her mother, the Maharani Bamba, was unsophisticated and pious,

but her father, the Maharajah Duleep Singh,

was a master of making the world they grew up in magical.

Let's talk about the gardens, cos we see the monkeys and

I read about a leopard pen

somewhere underneath where the children's quarters were.

I mean, you know, we wake up, maybe, if we're lucky, to birdsong,

but she would've woken up to growling?

It would be quite a deterrent for bad behaviour, wouldn't it?

That's true! That is true.

It would have been a stunning place, wouldn't it?

And I would've thought a really lovely place for a childhood.

'And the menagerie of birds and animals outside the house

'was nothing compared to what lay within.'

So this is the staircase that the Maharajah built

as the centrepiece of his hall.

Duleep Singh transformed what was once a sober country mansion

into nothing less than a Maharajah's palace.

But the architectural splendour disguised a less salubrious story.

Behind the magnificence was a tale of British imperialism

and a mighty kingdom crushed.

Duleep Singh's father, Ranjit Singh, had been one of the most

charismatic and successful leaders in Sikh history.

His kingdom in the Punjab was both peaceful and prosperous

and his riches were the stuff of legend.

But after his death, his land and wealth were seized by the British.

His only remaining heir, Sophia's father, still only a boy,

was forced to give up his kingdom

and, in 1854, he was exiled to England.

His charm and beauty made him a favourite of Queen Victoria

and he was given an income by the Realm.

But his elaborate styling of Elveden is a reminder that he never

came to terms with the loss of his inheritance.

It feels like India.

This is the corner of the house that just screams of the Court of Lahore

and would have, I guess, reminded him so much of his childhood

and everything that he had left behind.

Much of it is mirrored on the architecture of the Court of Lahore

and he was, of course, really exiled, effectively,

um, and brought here to spend his time

and his family's time here, bearing no threat to the British Empire.

'In fact, behind the magnificent facade,

'Duleep Singh was mired in debt and deeply unhappy.'

When Sophia was only 11 years old, her father, the Maharajah,

made a doomed attempt to take back his kingdom, but when that failed,

he jettisoned his wife, he jettisoned his children

and he moved to Paris to make a new life with his new mistress.

Bamba never recovered from her husband's desertion...

..and her children watched, powerless,

as she drank herself to oblivion.

Within a year, she was dead

and she was buried here, in the nearby churchyard.

Six years later,

in 1893, Duleep Singh died alone and destitute in France.

Sophia had suffered so much loss in her young life and,

without her father, there was absolutely no way the family were

going to hold on to Elveden,

the only home she'd ever known, a home that she had truly loved.

She and her siblings were forced to let it go.

Timid, awkward and devastated by the loss of her parents,

Sophia was far from the political rebel she would eventually become.

But in 1894, she moved to London, where she would be transformed

from shy teenager to paparazzi princess.

It was Sophia's godmother, Queen Victoria,

who came to the family's rescue.

On the edge of Hampton Court, she gave Sophia

and her two sisters a grace and favour residence,

which Sophia would call home for the rest of her life.

And it was from here, on the 8th May, 1895,

that, in a flurry of silks and pearls and ostrich feathers,

the three prepared themselves for their debut,

their entry into English high aristocratic society.

As they made their way across London, the girls were so nervous,

and why? Well, because they were heading

to Buckingham Palace, alongside 150

of the most well-connected aristocratic ladies of Britain.

They were to be presented before the Queen,

an opportunity that was a golden ticket

to the most fashionable parties in the land.

And I'm going to meet a man who has a unique reminder of that day,

which gives us a glimpse into the new London life

Sophia had begun to lead.

So what I have here is the actual gloves

which Sophia wore when she was a debutante...

-No, way!

-..to Queen Victoria.

Hang on, we're talking about the gloves in this picture?

These are the actual gloves

you can see Sophia wearing on the right-hand side.

-That's very exciting! Can I take them out?

-Sure.

-Oh, Peter, they fit perfectly!

-Slightly longer...

-No, no, no!

We can deal with that. That's fine.

But they are the height of elegance.

I mean, everything about her in this part of her life was elegant.

Oh, she was a fashionable lady of her time.

She was featured in all the high-society magazines

and glam mags of the day.

And she's featured in even the Ladies Kennel Journals,

which had a fabulous write-up about the princess.

Because her dogs won competitions?

Oh, award-winning. Her dogs even went to Crufts.

What I also love is that her sisters just teased her mercilessly

about this and poked fun of her latest photo spread

whereas the whole of London would be gripped by what is

she going to do next and what's she going to be wearing?

She was young, she was of royal lineage,

she was an international celebrity.

People loved reading about her in the media, in the papers.

She had the whole world at her feet.

Frivolous and unassuming,

Sophia's life had become a whirlwind of parties and photo shoots.

But she was about to travel to India

and, for the first time, be confronted

by all her family had lost.

She would leave London a high-society darling

and return a revolutionary.

Here, in the British Library, there is a forgotten treasure

which gives us a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a princess

and the reasons behind Sophia's transformation

from darling of the aristocracy to pioneering rebel.

These documents are absolutely riveting, because they give you

a real insight into the impact that India had on Sophia.

I'm looking at a diary that she kept

on her second visit to the country in 1906

and, in it, she catalogues some of the experiences that made her

change the entire direction of her life.

Sophia and her sister, Bamba, travelled across the Punjab

and she was brought face-to-face with the people

and the land that were once her family's.

The reaction she received from the poor in particular

made her realise just what an extraordinary leader

her grandfather, Ranjit Singh, must have been.

In this entry from Monday, January the 14th,

she writes about an experience that she and Bamba had when they

travelled to a river near Lahore to see a total eclipse of the sun.

And she talks about being surrounded by thousands of people who

made their way to the river to bathe.

"As we stopped to watch the people,

"a crowd began to collect around us as we walked

"and I heard lots of people saying who we were."

The murmur of "Ranjit Singh! Ranjit Singh!" echoed around them.

Everywhere she went, Sophia was recognised as the descendent

of the great Maharajah

and regaled with stories of her grandfather's passion for justice

and championing of religious unity.

Time and again, she was struck by just how much her grandfather

and his Sikh empire meant to the people of Punjab.

But she was also struck by the poverty

and unhappiness of the people under British rule. Her trip

coincided with a growing political movement for Indian independence

and Sophia began to spend time with its leaders.

She talks about meeting |Gokhale and Lajpat Rai - two of the most

notorious nationalists who were utterly feared by the British.

And she talks about hearing them speak.

Lajpat Rai in particular, she says,

"His speech was beautiful, forcible, sensible.

"He talked about how little land was being cultivated

"now as compared to what was in older times," and, by older times, he meant

the times of the Sikh Kingdom, when everybody had enough to eat.

But it was what Rai said to the sisters that touched Sophia most.

Lajpat Rai paused for a moment and he made everybody listen.

And he said, "Turn around and look at these two,"

and he gestured to Sophia and Bamba. He introduced them as,

"the granddaughters of the Lion of Punjab."

"And I turned crimson," she writes.

"I didn't know what to do."

Such attention mortified her, but it also deeply touched her,

because it told her just how important her family was, not just

in Punjab because they were royalty, but as a symbol of resistance.

The meeting ended fraught with tension.

The ruling British were terrified of a potential rebellion

that might be triggered by the presence

of the descendants of the Maharajah they had deposed.

And it was a defining moment for Sophia.

Facing the stark reality of the injustices inflicted on the people

her family had once ruled, she was filled with a revolutionary fervour.

This Punjabi princess had discovered

her grandfather's Sikh warrior spirit...

..a spirit that was about to find a cause

she would spend the rest of her life fighting for.

As Sophia returned to London, she was determined to move

beyond her frivolous past and seek a purpose worthy of her ancestry.

And it was prejudice faced by her own family that provided her

with a focus for her passions.

In 1900, Sophia's sister, Bamba, went to Chicago to train as a doctor...

..but halfway through her studies, the university declared women were

incapable of the intricacies of surgery

and the course was cancelled, crushing Bamba's ambitions.

Meanwhile, her sister, Catherine, had fallen in love with a woman

and was living an unconventional life in Germany.

As Sophia started to notice her own sisters

struggling for acceptance, it began to really matter to her

just how little control women had of their own destinies.

She'd found her purpose - the fight for equality.

And it was to Emmeline Pankhurst's

Women's Society for Social and Political Union, the WSPU,

that Sophia was drawn.

They believed the only way women would gain control of their lives

was by having a voice in politics.

Sophia was gripped...

..and it wasn't long before she got a chance to show her public support.

Parliament Square - home of British democracy.

Yet on the 18th November, 1910, the setting for one of the most

shocking scenes of brutality against the suffragettes.

For Sophia, the day began half a mile away at Caxton Hall.

On Friday, November the 18th, the WSPU

were waiting to hear what the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith,

was going to do about the Conciliation Bill which,

if successful, would have given some women the vote.

'Di Atkinson is a historian of the women's suffrage movement.'

It would've been the first step in a series of steps, they hoped, which

would enfranchise the entire female population over the age of 21.

But the Prime Minister was a firm opponent of votes for women

and refused even to discuss the bill.

As news of his decision reached the suffragettes, emotions ran high.

Mrs Pankhurst and a deputation of a dozen of the most celebrated

suffragettes began to march on Parliament.

It was the rock star contingent, wasn't it?

The most famous suffragettes of the day.

They were 12 of the most famous women of their day

and, of course, she took Princess Sophia Duleep Singh.

This, surely, must have been a propaganda coup, to have

somebody like Sophia leading a march like this?

I mean, for a woman of her standing, her rank, her background,

her connections, to be marching ahead of everybody else,

this would have been seen to be treacherous behaviour.

Hundreds of suffragettes converged on Parliament Square,

but they were met by a wall of 1,000 policemen.

Emmeline's deputation was surrounded

and what ensued was unlike anything Sophia had ever seen before.

They were being constantly thrown back,

kicked and punched, thrown to the ground, crushed by police horses

and, in at least 30 different cases, sexually assaulted.

The brutal scenes unfolding before her had a profound effect on Sophia.

And when she saw a policeman repeatedly smashing

a woman against the pavement, she could no longer contain her anger.

She put herself physically between the policeman

and the suffragette to make him stop.

And that was very brave indeed,

because she didn't know what this man was going to do.

The policeman recognised Sophia and fled...

..but not before she'd recorded his badge number,

V700, and she wasn't about to let such behaviour go unchallenged.

So look, Di, this is a copy of the letter of complaint

that Sophia writes after Black Friday.

And look, here is Constable V700.

"He pushed a poor exhausted lady, so she fell on her hands and knees."

And it goes through so many important hands -

the Commissioner of Police,

goes through another senior police officer's hand and then...

Winston Spencer-Churchill, WSC. Why was he getting involved?

Why was he so angry about this?

Well, Winston Churchill's the Home Secretary, and there are

so many complaints and so much stuff in the press about Churchill

and his handling of this situation that he doesn't take kindly

to being written to by a suffragette -

certainly, somebody with her rank and her background.

He's humiliated, he's embarrassed, he's annoyed.

And it takes him a month but finally, he just says, right, that's it.

"Send no further reply to her."

He just has had enough

and he draws a line under it

and hopes that's going to be the end of the matter.

But Churchill had underestimated Sophia's determination.

The granddaughter of the greatest Sikh Maharajah in history

wasn't prepared to be ignored.

And her next target wasn't just the Home Secretary,

but the Prime Minister himself.

On the 6th of February, 1911, the streets of London were packed with

people straining to see the carriage of King George V

as it headed towards Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament.

At Number 10, the suffragettes' enemy number one,

Herbert Asquith,

was preparing to make his way to the House of Commons.

Outside Downing street, the police certainly saw Sophia...

..but they didn't register any threat and, really, why would they?

Finely-dressed lady, wide-brim hat tipped over her face,

she just seemed like any of the number of people

who'd gathered here to wave the Prime Minister on his way.

But as Asquith got into his chauffeur-driven car,

the princess sprang into action.

Sophia broke away from the group of bystanders

and pulled out a poster from the expensive fur muff

that she was wearing and dashed headlong at Asquith's car,

slamming her body and her bit of paper against the window

where he couldn't avoid but see it.

The police came, they lifted her up,

they carried her off as she screamed suffragette slogans at him.

The bit of paper had one simple message.

It said Votes For Women. He sat there, fuming.

It had all the makings of a royal scandal -

Queen Victoria's goddaughter arrested

on the very day of her grandson's speech in Parliament.

Sophia had put the authorities in an impossible position.

What are they supposed to do?

Are they meant to arrest her and cause a scandal by doing so

or do they just pretend the whole thing had never happened?

In the end, Sophia was released without charge...

..but she wasn't about to back down...

..this time even putting her freedom on the line for her beliefs.

On the 30th of December, 1913,

Princess Sophia was summoned here

to face prosecution.

She'd refused to pay her taxes.

She had two dogs, a groom, a carriage - all of which required

licences and none of which she had any intention of paying.

Sophia had become a supporter of the Tax Resistance League,

suffragettes who refused to contribute financially

to a state which wouldn't give them the vote.

If she failed to pay, she risked prison.

Up until now, Sophia had felt far too shy to speak at suffragette events.

But this was different.

After the Inland Revenue presented its case,

she rose and she addressed the court.

"I am unable conscientiously to

"pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control

"over its expenditure.

"Neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of

"Members of Parliament, whose salaries I have helped to pay.

"This is very unjustified.

"When the women of England are enfranchised

"and the state acknowledges me as a citizen,

"I shall, of course, pay my share willingly towards its upkeep.

"If I am not a fit person for the purpose of representation,

"why am I a fit person for taxation?"

It was an act of immense personal bravery.

The judge ruled that she shouldn't be imprisoned, but he did impose a fine.

And a week later, bailiffs charged into her house

and confiscated some of her most precious jewellery. Diamonds, pearls.

Sophia faced them unflinchingly.

Even though she knew she might lose her possessions, her home,

even her freedom, Sophia never gave up

her fight for the cause she so passionately believed in.

It took three decades of intense campaigning for the dream Sophia

had spent her adult life championing to at last become a reality.

In 1928, for the first time, all women over 21 were given the vote.

Across Britain, the power to make political change

was finally in their hands.

Sophia was, quite rightly, very proud of all of her achievements.

But they came at immense personal cost.

She never married.

She was too brown for a white man, too white for a brown man,

and, frankly, far too much trouble for either.

Despite strong maternal longings,

she never had her own children to tell her stories to.

But then, in 1939, Sophia's housekeeper had a child named Drovna

and Sophia was made Godmother.

So what are we looking at here? What's this picture?

This is my Christening.

-And that's you? That's Little Drov?

-And that's me.

And she's looking adoringly at you.

And in Drovna's memories, Sophia's passion lives on.

I remember going into Hampton Court Gardens,

and she'd tell me that they had, um, been suffragettes

and "You do realise that there weren't always votes for women?"

And she swung round, and she said, "On your knees,

"and you've got to promise me.

"In fact, you make a solemn vow that you will always vote.

"Always, always vote."

And so I promised her I'd always vote, and I always have.

Today, nearly 200 female MPs sit in the House of Commons.

It's a vision of equality that Sophia might never have envisaged.

And, as I near the end of my journey, I'm struck by just how much

her courage helped shift the balance of power.

Baroness Flather was the first Asian woman to be made

a peer in the House of Lords,

and she believes Sophia's legacy is one

that should never be taken for granted.

I think most of us have really forgotten what it was like,

in the old days, when women didn't have a vote,

because we have so many women now in important positions.

And I think we should always remind ourselves what

people like Sophia achieved for us.

On the 22nd of August 1948, aged 71, Sophia Duleep Singh died.

It was her final wish to be cremated like a Sikh,

and have her ashes scattered in her grandfather's former Kingdom.

The India that became Sophia's final resting place was one

that was torn apart by religious violence.

But in death, just as in life, Sophia strove to overcome prejudice.

She left money in her will to three schools. Three girls' schools.

One was Hindu, one was Muslim and one was Sikh.

Her life's experiences had taken her back to her grandfather.

Just as Ranjit Singh had battled for justice and freedom,

of all his descendents, Sophia was the true inheritor

of the spirit of his once majestic Sikh Kingdom.