No. 60. — 1908.1 oouto : history of ceylo^. 



273 



Beardlet 1 , who was a great friend of the Portuguese 2 ; and 

 when they were dead he proclaimed himself king, and began 

 to act the part of all tyrants, that is, to kill all whom he might 

 fear 3 , and among them a son of Tribuli Pandar's who was 

 half brother to the king of Cot a 4 , to whom moreover the 

 kingdom belonged. And after having ridded himself of all the 

 pretenders he wished also to secure himself from the grandees : 

 and all that might cause him the least anxiety he commanded 

 to be put to death before him by his swordsmen, among whom 

 was also Bicramasinga 5 , upper modeliar and his field- 

 marshal, who had instructed him in the military art, and from 

 whom he had received very great services for the space of thirty 

 years, by whose industry he had attained to the supremacy 

 that he now held 6 , satiating his cruelty with that bloody 

 spectacle. 



And because there now remained none to fear except 

 Necherami 7 , the former wife of his father, and mother of the 

 sons whom he had killed 8 , a very dignified and highly honoured 

 lady, it being amongst them held as a baseness to kill a woman, 

 he commanded her to be brought before him, and had her 

 stripped until she was left in only a poor cloth, and then banished 

 her to a mountain very far from there. This afflicted woman, 

 going from the palace in that miserable state, having been 

 so lately queen and lady, seeing herself now as if she were a 

 malefactor, in garments so base and vile, complaining of her 

 fortune, and of the cruelty that a son of her husband's, whom 

 she had brought up as her own, had exercised towards her, 

 and placing her hands on her face to wipe away the tears that 

 ran down it, happened to touch her ears with them, and 

 finding still some earrings of gold and precious stones that the 



1 In original Barbirihas = "little beards." Cesare Federici mentions 

 this man by this nickname, and speaks of him as Raja Sinha's only 

 brother (see supra, p. 242, note 4 , and c/. p. 145, note 2 ). 



2 This fact alone would account for his murder by Raja Sinha. 



3 Cf. infra, X. vm. xii. (pp. 281, 283-5). 



4 This was probably Vijayapala Adahasin, Vidiye Raja's son by 

 his second wife, a daughter of Mayadunne's (see supra, p. 1G4, note 2 ). 



5 The printed edition has " Biera Matiga"; the manuscript has 

 " Bicra Masiga." 



6 See supra, p. 225, note 8 . Couto is here anticipating : for it 

 was not until some ten years later that Vikramasinha Mudali was 

 poisoned by Raja Sinha's orders (see infra, p. 394, note 4 ). 



7 Nachchire Hami ? Her name is not given by any other writer. 



8 This and the passages below imply that she was not his own 

 mother : there is nothing in the Rdjdvaliya to confirm this 

 implication. 



t 36-08 



