Hsinbyumashin


Hsinbyumashin was a senior queen of King Mindon Min during the Konbaung dynasty. She was born Princess Supayagale c. 1821, the daughter of King Bagyidaw and his consort Nanmadaw Me Nu.
She was wedded to Mindon Min, the penultimate king, who made her the high-ranking "Queen of the Central Palace". Her full regnal title upon ascending the throne was Sīripavaratiloka Mahārājindādhipati Padumaratanādevī. On 25 November 1877, she received the title Hsinbyumashin, which translates to "mistress of the white elephants," upon receiving a white elephant named Sīrimahāsubhatta from King Mindon.
Hsinbyumashin dominated the last days of King Mindon. She was orchestrated the massacre of upward of 100 members of the royal family, it was an edict by Hsinbyumashin that ordered almost all possible heirs to the throne be killed, so that her daughter Supayalat and son-in-law Thibaw Min would become queen and king. The ambitious Hsinbyumashin, after placing Thibaw on the throne, offered her oldest daughter Supayagyi, to be his queen. During the royal aggamahesi coronation, Supayalat pushed in next to her sister to be anointed queen at the same time, breaking ancient custom. The female lineage of Hsinphyumashin, her mother Nanmadaw Me Nu, and her daughter Supayalat in the male dominated Burmese monarchy is a very interesting one regarding the end of Independence and the monarchy.

Exile

The Konbaung dynasty reign lasted just seven years when Thibaw Min was defeated in the Third Anglo-Burmese War and forced to abdicate by the British in 1885. On 25 November 1885, the royal family were taken away in a covered carriage, leaving Mandalay Palace by the southern gate of the walled city along the streets lined by British soldiers and their wailing subjects, to the River Irrawaddy where a steamboat called Thuriya awaited. Hsinbyumashin and her daughter, Supayagyi, were sent to Tavoy. She died in Rangoon, British Burma on 26 February 1900. Her remains were interred at the Mandalay Palace enclosure.

In popular culture