Rana Bahadur Shah

Rana Bahadur Shah, King of Nepal (Nepali: रण बहादुर शाह) (1775–1806) was the King of Nepal from 1777 to 1806. In 1777, he succeeded to the throne after the death of his father, Pratap Singh Shah. He ruled under the regencies of his mother, Queen Rajendra Rajya Laxmi Devi (died on 13 July 1785 from tuberculosis), and then of his uncle, Bahadur Shah. During this time, the kingdom expanded by conquest to include the Garhwal and Kumaon regions, now part of India. He sent his uncle Bahadur Shah to jail, who later died in jail.

Royal Reign

The premature death of Pratap Singh Shah (reigned 1775–77), the eldest son of Prithvi Narayan Shah, left a huge power vacuum that remained unfilled for decades, seriously debilitating the emerging Nepalese state. Pratap Singh Shah's successor was his son, Rana Bahadur Shah (reigned 1777–99), aged two and one-half years at his accession. The acting regent until 1785 was Queen Rajendralakshmi, followed by Bahadur Shah (reigned 1785–94), the second son of Prithvi Narayan Shah. Court life was consumed by rivalry centered on alignments with these two regents rather than on issues of national administration, and it set a bad precedent for future competition among contending regents. The exigencies of Sino-Nepalese War in 1788–92 had forced Bahadur Shah to temporarily take a pro-British stance, which had led to a commercial treaty with the British in 1792.