Battle of Danture

01A queen for Kandy

Kandy, in the central hills of Lanka, was the last Sinhala kingdom free of the Portuguese. Its king Vimaladharmasuriya I, who had once lived among the Portuguese and been baptised, had returned to Buddhism and taken the throne. In 1594 the Portuguese sent Pedro Lopes de Sousa with an army and the young princess Dona Catarina, heiress of the old Kandyan line, to crown her as their client. They took the city, and Catarina was proclaimed queen.

02The trap closes

Vimaladharmasuriya withdrew into the forest and struck at the Portuguese supply lines while their Sinhala auxiliaries began to desert. Hungry and harried, the army began to fall back, and at Danture, in October 1594, it was surrounded and destroyed. De Sousa died of his wounds. Dona Catarina was captured, and Vimaladharmasuriya married her, joining his claim to the old royal line. Kandy kept its independence for another two hundred and twenty years.