Sri Lanka King: BuwanekabahuVII.

 ( 1521 A.D. -  1551 A.D. )

With Mayadunne going against the king Buwanekabahu in the year 1527 the Portuguese got the opportunity to interfere directly in the local affairs. King Buwanekabahu had to seek the assistance of the Portuguese to ensure his safety from the brother who was an enemy. king Buwanekabahu’s motive was to make his grandson prince Dharmapala the king of Kotte. He also wanted ensure the safety of his grandson. So, he sent him to king Jhon III of Portugal making and naming him the heir to the throne. king Buwanekabahu also requested the Portuguese king to send several Christians missionaries to Ceylon to teach Christianity to the Ceylonese. He did this just to please the Portuguese king.

The Portuguese welcome the Sinhala commander and accepted the Sinhala king’s offers and requests. He promised to treat prince Dharmapala as the legitimate heir to the throne in Kotte. The Portuguese king also sent to Ceylon several Christian missionaries to spread Christianity. He Sinhala envoys returned to the Island with six Christian missionaries in the year 1543. The king had threats from two of his sons and therefore, sent the two sons to Portugal and made them Christians. They were later known as Don Louis and Don Jhon. An attempts was made to make these two princes kings of the Up-country and in Jaffna, but it failed as the Portuguese naval ship was wrecked in the sea.




Historical documents say that king Buwanekabahu had informed the Portuguese leaders that king Mayadunne of Seethawaka was making attempt to attack them. One day when the king was in his terrace he was shot right on to the heart by Portuguese soldier and was killed. This shooting was reported to have been done on the instructions of the Portuguese captain. The king died in the year 1551.

After the death of kin Buwanekabahu the Portuguese king arrived in Ceylon together with three hundred armed men in seventy naval vessels and looted the palace, saying that they came to make Prince Dharmapala the king. the Portuguese king even attacked the Seethawaka palace and looted that palace too. King Mayadunne fled away to Deraniyagala to escape death. The Christian governor could not make Prince Dharmapala a Christian and had to return to his country after that failure. He took the property and wealth he looted from Ceylon.

However, with the death of king Buwanekabahu, the administration in Kotte collapsed and king Dharmapala became Christian in the year 1557. The Portuguese who failed to resist the attacks of the king of Seethawaka took the king Dharmapala to the fort of Colombo,. Thus king Dharmapala became helpless and in fact he was just like a puppet of the Portuguese king. He even wrote a deed vesting the ownership of the kingdom in the Portuguese king as a present.