East India Company

Akbar Shah II (r. 1806-1837) was the penultimate Mughal emperor, ruling a Delhi court stripped of real power and increasingly hemmed in by the East India Company. He tried and failed to make his favourite son, Mirza Jahangir, heir apparent in place of his eldest son, the future Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Siraj-ud-Daulah (c. 1729-1757) was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, whose brief reign ended in defeat at Plassey after his commander Mir Jafar defected to the British East India Company. His death in 1757 opened Bengal, the wealthiest Mughal province, to British rule.