James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa, Most Excellent among Women, the great niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her and overcame many obstacles to marry her, converting to Islam and according to Indian sources becoming a double-agent working against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue, harem politics, religious and family disputes. But such things were not unknown; from the early 16th century, when the Inquisition banned the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian Mutiny, the white Mughals who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassment to successive colonial administrations.
