Shivaji and His Times c14.s8.2

c14.s8.2

The recent rebellion of Shambhuji had revealed the serious danger that threatened the newly founded Maratha kingdom. The character of his eldest son filled Shiva with the gloomiest anticipations of the future. A profligate, capricious and cruel youth, devoid of every spark of honour, patriotism or religious fervour, could not be left sole master of Maharashtra. And yet, the only alternative to Shambhu was Rajaram, a boy of 10, whose accession would have meant a regency. But there was such mutual jealousy and discord among the old ministers of the State, especially between Moro Trimbak, the premier, and Annaji Datto, the viceroy of the West, that a council of regency would have broken up in civil war and the ruin of the State as surely as the Puna council of ministers did a century later. A division of the kingdom between the two princes was proposed, Shambhuji taking Maharashtra and Rajaram the Karnat country beyond the Tungabhadra; but the plan was not given effect to. (Sabh. 94, 102.)