The Kingdom of Kandy represents the sole…
May 1638 CE
The Kingdom of Kandy represents the sole independent native polity on Ceylon, since the Portuguese have annexed much of the island's coastal areas.
The Portuguese had attempted to capture thekingdom in 1594, 1603 and 1630, but had been defeated on all three occasions.
With the death of King Senarath, Kandy’s second ruler, in 1635, the kingdom had been split into three parts.
His son had suceeded him as Rajasinghe II, and Rajasinghe's cousins, Wijayapala and Kumarasinghe, had been given control of the Matale and Uva areas.
As a young man, Rajasingha, based at the city of Senkadagala (modern Kandy) in Ceylon's mountainous interior, had participated in the 1612 counteroffensive that had routed a Portuguese invasion into Kandyan territory.
The near incessant warfare has significantly embittered the Kandyans towards the Portuguese; furthermore, the brief success of the warlike kingdom of Sitawaka a century earlier has many in the kingdom convinced that the total expulsion of the colonial power is a distinct possibility.
Senrath had long courted the Dutch as a potential ally against the Portuguese, but a treaty signed with Dutch envoy Marcelis Boschouwer had not amounted to much.
Soon after Rajasingha's accession, however, the Dutch, now firmly established in Batavia, put Portuguese Goa under a blockade.
Rajasingha on March 28, 1638, had led his army to victory against the Portuguese forces at Gannoruwa, soon afterward sending a request for aid to the admiral Adam Westerwolt.
Rajasingha has by May 23 signed an extensive military and trade treaty with the Dutch.
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