This was supposedly said by the raja of Jaitpur, when asked by his host Bir Singh Deo if he could see the fort at Jhansi from the rooftop of his palace in Orchha.

In 1735, Raja Indargir Gosain, Maratha governor of Jhansi fort, rebelled and ultimately established a small principality based at Moth to the northeast.

[13]: 270  Another governor, Babu Rao Kanahi, served after Antia but before 1761,[14]: 48  when Ganesh Shambhaji is described as "the Maratha officer in charge of Jhansi".

In November 1761, Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh, had begun a military campaign in Bundelkhand, and Ganesh Shambhaji decided to switch sides and join him.

After a detachment of Shuja-ud-Daula's captured the fortress of Moth, the Maratha governor of Jhansi (who Srivastava doesn't name) fearfully offered to submit and pay a 300,000-rupee tribute in return for being allowed to keep possession of the fort.

Shuja-ud-Daula appointed Muhammad Bashir as faujdar of the fort, and gave Ganesh Shambhaji the tax farm revenue for the district.

In late 1773, Shuja-ud-Daula sent another force south of the Yamuna, this time led by one Mir Naim, but they were defeated in a battle at Jhansi.

Another Mughal-aligned force, led by Mirashgir, came to besiege Jhansi in late 1774, but the death of Shuja-ud-Daula in January 1775 resulted in the siege being abandoned.

[14]: 50–2 The newly-appointed British superintendent of Jhansi, Francis Gordon, wrote a report in 1854 documenting the state of the town at that time.

It was not an industrial centre of any kind, but he wrote that its commercial traffic was "enormous"; he estimated that 3 million rupees' worth of goods passed through Jhansi per year.

Another grievance was that the British had suspended endowments to the temple of Mahalakshmi (the patron goddess of the Newalkar dynasty) which had previously come from revenue collected from certain villages.

[14]: 55 At this point the garrison was composed entirely of Indian troops, and it consisted of five infantry companies, a cavalry force, and an artillery detachment, all commanded by British officers.

That afternoon, one company of the Jhansi infantry along with the artillery detachment surrounded and entered the star fort and magazine, under the pretext of an attack by dacoits.

[14]: 56–7 [13]: 209–11 On the 9th, there was a dispute between Lakshmi Bai and Sada Sheo Rao, a relative of her late husband, over who would rule in Jhansi, with both of them "bidding against each other" to win the support of the rebels.

Sada Sheo Rao assembled a force of 300 supporters, seized the fort of Karahra on 13 June, and attempted to proclaim himself ruler of Jhansi, but Lakshmi Bai sent troops after him and ultimately had him imprisoned and detained.

Erskine responded by giving her full authorisation to rule on behalf of the British until their troops arrived and sent a proclamation that all were to obey her; he assured her that she would be treated well.

[14]: 58 [13]: 212 The main members of Lakshmi Bai's administration were her father, Moropant Tambe; Lalu, the paymaster; Lachman Rao, the diwan; and Kashi Nath, the tahsildar.

[13]: 217 As late as February 1858, Lakshmi Bai pledged loyalty to the British and sent them multiple letters promising to hand over Jhansi without a fight if they treated her honourably.

However, governor-general Charles Canning had never wanted to follow through with Erskine's earlier proposition, and he considered the rani a rebel against British authority.

On 14 February, she issued a proclamation urging both Hindus and Muslims to take up arms against the British because "they would surely destroy the people's religion".

[14]: 62 Commanders under Lakshmi Bai had all the vegetation outside the fort burned so that advancing British troops could forage absolutely nothing for supplies.

[28] A popular stanza from it reads: बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी, खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।[29]Translation: "From the bards of Bundela we have heard this story / She fought valiantly like a warrior woman, she was the queen of Jhansi."

For Marathi people there is an equally well-known ballad about the brave queen penned at the spot near Gwalior where she died in battle, by B. R. Tambe, who was a poet laureate of Maharashtra and of her clan.

In October 2009, the Union health ministry gave approvals for setting up an institute equivalent to AIIMS, the first in Bundelkhand region and developing central agriculture university.

The towns and major cities connected to it are Datia, Gwalior, Lalitpur, Agra, New Delhi, Bhopal, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Lucknow, Babina, Orchha, Banda, Shivpuri, Chhatarpur, Unnao Balaji, and Sagar.

Jhansi Airstrip is a military aviation base built in the British era used by the Indian army and political visitors.

The Uttar Pradesh government announced the construction of an all-new civil aviation base to support tourism in Bundelkhand in April 2011.

To get a geographical bearing on the story it should be imagined to be about where Jhansi really is - 25.27 N., 78.33 E."[40] Nightrunners of Bengal is set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 at "Bhowani" (the title alludes to the mysterious distribution of "chapatis" to village headmen which preceded the revolt).

In each novel the main character is a British army officer named Colonel Rodney Savage, one of a succession of such men from the same family.

Some time afterward, Rossetti discovered that she had been misinformed about the husband and wife's suicide pact in the face of a murderous and implacable enemy ('The swarming howling wretches below' the tower walls) which is the poem's subject, but did not delete it from later editions.