Gungadhur Rao died in 1854. Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General, refused to acknowledge his right to adopt an heir, and the little province of Jhansi was annexed to British India. The young Rajah and the Ranee, his mother by adoption, were pensioned off; the latter receiving six thousand a year, paid monthly. Her troops were disbanded, and replaced by a few regiments of Sepoys and Sowars.
The Ranee was powerless to resist; she could only bide her time. She had not long to wait. Three years later, India was in a blaze. The Bundelcund Sepoys were amongst the first to mutiny. On the 14th of June, the native troops at Jhansi broke into rebellion, murdered several of their officers in the cantonments, and seized the "Star Fort." Some few English escaped to Nagoda, but the rest, numbering fifty-five men, women, and children, barricaded themselves in the "Town Fort." But after a brave resistance of four days, the mutineers burst open the gates on the 8th; and the English, having been promised life and liberty, laid down their arms. Thereupon a massacre commenced, which for barbarity, almost equalled that which took place shortly after at Cawnpore. Nineteen ladies, twenty-three children, twenty-four civil service employés, two non-commissioned officers, and eight officers were butchered in a manner familiar to all who can remember the Indian Mutiny.
It was generally believed at the time that this massacre took place by order of the Ranee, who is said to have stood by while the heads of ladies were chopped off, and the brains of babies were dashed out upon the flags. Nay, some have declared she laughed aloud when some deed of atrocity worse than the rest came under her notice.
Shortly after this massacre, the Ranee took the field at the head of some hundreds of Sepoys, and marched towards Gwalior, where Scindiah, the descendant of our old enemy whom we routed at Assaye, remained faithful to the British. But little was known of her movements during the rest of 1857; in August of that year, a female, dressed in a green uniform, was captured at Delhi, while leading on a party of Sepoys. This woman was at first supposed to be the terrible Ranee, and a rumour sped through the British Camp that she was leading the Gwalior rebels; but it was afterwards found that Lukshmi Baee still remained in the territories of the Maharajah. The prisoner was described as "an ugly old woman, short and fat." She was a species of prophetess, held in high estimation by the rebels around Delhi.