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Historical person
1720–1782
Hyder Ali was the de facto ruler of Mysore in southern India from the 1760s until his death in 1782. A skilled military organiser, he expanded Mysore, fought the Marathas and the British East India Company, and laid the strategic foundations continued by his son Tipu Sultan.
Hyder Ali was born in Budikote and died in Chittoor. Hyder Ali rose from military service to become the effective ruler of Mysore, modernising its forces and fighting the East India Company in the First and Second Anglo-Mysore Wars; his son Tipu Sultan continued the struggle after Hyder’s death.
In Sir Walter Scott’s Chronicles of the Canongate, Hyder Ali intervenes against the plot involving his son Tipu Sultan, but rescue does not erase the human cost. In Alex Rutherford’s Fortune’s Heir, Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, supported by France, threaten the Company’s position while internal rivalry weakens its government.
Series
The Ballantyne Chronicles follow Nicholas Ballantyne from a threatened youth in 1744 Scotland into the expanding world of the British East India Company. Sent to India for his safety, he forms a decisive friendship with Robert Clive and becomes involved in the contest between British and French interests…
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The Waverley Novels are Walter Scott’s long sequence of historical romances, named after the anonymously published Waverley of 1814. The series moves across Scottish, English and continental European history, placing fictional protagonists between older systems of loyalty and the political, commercial and legal institutions replacing them. Scott’s characters…
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