Following a rebellion of British rule in India, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti wrote “In the Round Tower at Jhansi, June 8, 1857.” It is a love poem about a real British couple, Alexander and Margaret Skene. They are depicted as hiding from impending doom, sharing their final moments, and choosing to die at their own hands than face what lay nearby.

This article will share the poem, briefly discuss what actually happened the Skenes, and then wade into the propaganda from which a poem like this was inspired.

To hear the poem as shared on our channel:

Rossetti’s Poem Gets Much Wrong

Jhansi is a city deep in the center of northern India. During the 1850s, it boasted a population of thousands and was an attractive location for the British East India Company. With a corporate headquarters, Great Britain placed a military presence, as many empires have, and continue to do.

On May 10, 1857, Indian infantrymen overthrew a garrison north of Delhi, which is far north of Jhansi. The event was labeled a “mutiny,” but this is incorrect, as it was not “an open rebellion against the proper authorities.” The success outside of Delhi led to others, and they continued for more than 2 years. At Jhansi, the revolution lasted until 1858. During the course of it, there was substantial bloodshed, including the death of Captain Skene and his wife, which would have been publicized in the newspapers back in Great Britain.

During her life, Christina Rossetti wrote a lot about love and loss. In this poem, she paints the couple as hiding from the revolutionaries and choosing to die together after a final kiss. Captain Skene put a bullet into Margaret, then another in himself. To the poet this seemed a plausible finish to the story of a marriage under enemy fire, but for Captain Skene, it was not.

The Skenes, both armed, died while moving along the wall of the tower. They attempted a path of escape and when the fight came, they were killed as invaders in a foreign land by people who refused to be colonized that day.

As for the poem, Rossetti described insurmountable odds – 1,000 : 1 – much like many love stories, and possibly the literal calculation in Jhansi at that moment, for when the day was done, so were they.

Gender as a Means of Propaganda

Rosalind Gill’s 2007 book, Gender and the Media, opens chapter 1 noting that we live in a stratified world, and that gender plays a major factor. In many ways, the use of gender is leveraged as a tool for or against a particular cause.

After reading The Complete works of Christina Rossetti, it is my conclusion that she was not a propagandist, but that propaganda influenced “In the Round Tower at Jhansi, June 8, 1857.” Along with reading the papers, she was present during much talk about the events overseas. What she read clearly had an effect on her. To process the event, she did what she did best.

Her version was possibly a relay of what she’d been told. That this loving couple was so afraid of the savagery approaching they did the most sensible thing. What was left out was that among the rebellion were women. One such woman was Queen Laxmibai Newalkar, the Rani of Jhansi. She tried to free her people through diplomacy. When that did not work, she joined the fight. Days after the death of the Skenes, she met her fate, as well.

For many years the Rani of Jhansi’s place in history has been denied, but in the crisis and catharsis of our times, stories like her’s are being revealed, and the heroism of those willing to serve their people to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice is, as well.