The Last Mughal - William Dalrymple

Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor of India, was a mystic, an accomplished poet and a skilled calligrapher, but he will be mainly remembered for giving his blessing to the largest uprising of the 19th Century. The siege of Delhi in 1857 is perhaps the seminal event in the history of Empire, and it saw thousands die in fighting on both sides, and then the execution of ten of thousands of Indians once the British troops had regained the now ruined city.