History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58.s1.4

v4.c58.s1.4

A number of generals who had conquered kingdoms for their master with their own blood and sweat and had been long accustomed to giving the law to millions, were not likely to obey a child or a sluggard on the throne of a far off capital, nor a veiled woman or a man of their own class acting as the power behind the throne. A feudal State cannot be governed by a faineant king nor by a constitutional prime minister. When the king is no longer a hero, the military viceroys of the provinces will obey him as little as the major-generals obeyed Richard Cromwell. Only a superman,—a Henry V. or a Napoleon I.,—can control the feudal barons and hold together the military type* of State, such as all the Islamic monarchies in India were. Therefore, after the death of the last great Adil Shah (in November 1656), the dissolution of the remaining Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan and their absorption into the Mughal empire would have taken place as an inevitable, speedy and almost silent operation of Nature, but for the entrance of a new factor into Deccan politics.