Akbar Shah II

Akbar Shah II (r. 1806-1837) was the penultimate Mughal emperor, holding a Delhi court that kept its ceremonial and literary life while the East India Company reduced its standing and revenue. He tried for thirty years to make Mirza Jahangir his heir instead of the future Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-1857) was the last Mughal emperor, a calligrapher and celebrated Urdu poet reigning over a Delhi court stripped of real power. Reluctantly made figurehead of the 1857 Uprising, he was tried and exiled to Rangoon, where he died in 1862, ending the Mughal dynasty.