Chap. I.] 



RAJA SIXGHA. 



19 



Meanwhile Eaja Singha who, though tlie youngest of 

 his family, succeeded to tlie territories of his father on the 

 death of Maaya Dunnai in 1571, proceeded to develope 

 his designs for concentrating in his person supreme 

 authority over the other petty kingdoms of Ceylon. He 

 put to death every troublesome asphant of the royal 

 line\ and directed his arms against every chief who had 

 been hostile or neutral during liis struggles witli the 

 king of Cotta. In the course of a very few years he 

 made himself virtually master of the interior, and drove 

 into exile the king of Kandy, wlio, with his queen and 

 children, fled for safety to the Portuguese fort at Manaar, 

 where he and his daughter became Cliristians, and 

 were baptized, she as Donna Catharina, and lie inider 

 the name of Don Phihp, in honour of Philip XL, wlio 

 had just acquired the crown of Portugal with that of 

 Spain. On her father's decease. Donna Catharina was 

 left a ward of the Portuguese, and through their instru- 

 mentality was afterwards made queen of her ancestral 

 dominions. 



Unable, from tlie extent of the mihtary operations in 

 which he was engaged, to retain possession of the Kandyan 

 countiy, Eaja Singha adopted the precaution of disarm- 

 ing the Kandyans, and was thus enabled to concentrate 

 his attention on preparations for the siege of Colombo, 

 which he at leno;th invested with a formidable force. To 

 this memorable assault he brought, according to the 

 account of the Portuguese, fifty thousand fighting men, 

 and an equal number of pioneers and camp foUowers, 

 Avith upwards of two thousand elephants and mnumerable 

 baggage oxen.'*^ He even collected a naval force with 

 which to threaten the fleet of the Viceroy. He took 

 up his position before the fort in August, a.d. 1586, and 



A.D. 



1586. 



^ A.D. 1581. The Portuguese 

 assert, that Kaja Siuo-]ia I., to clear 

 his owai way to tlie tlirone, murdered 

 not ouly his brothers, but his aged 

 liither, Maaya Dunnai. De Couto 



dec. X. ch. xiii. vol. vi. pt. ii. p. 215; 

 Farta y Souza, vol. iii. pt. i. ch. iv. 

 ^ Faeja y Souza, vol. iii. pt. i. ch. 

 vi. ; De Couto, dec. x. ch. ix. vol. vi. 

 pt. ii. p. 419. 



