When the Maharaja died in 1853, the British East India Company under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie refused to recognize the claim of his adopted heir and annexed Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse.

The Rani managed to escape on horseback and joined the rebels in capturing Gwalior, where they proclaimed Nana Saheb as Peshwa of the revived Maratha Empire.

[2] In the city of Varanasi, he and his wife Bhagirathi had a daughter, who they named Manakarnika, an epithet of the River Ganges; in childhood she was known by the diminutive Manu.

[5] According to uncorroborated popular legend, her childhood playmates in Bithur included Nana Sahib and Tatya Tope, who would similarly become prominent in 1857.

These stories relate that Manakarnika, deprived of a feminine influence by her mother's death, was allowed to play and learn with her male playmates: she was literate, skilled in horseriding, and—extremely unusually for a girl, if true—was given lessons in fencing, swordplay, and even firearms.

[9] According to popular legend, he turned blind eye to Rani Lakshmibhai's equipping and training of an armed all-female regiment, but if it existed, it was likely formed after Gangadhar Rao's death.

[11] The British administration, led by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, had for several years enforced a "doctrine of lapse", wherein Indian states whose Hindu rulers died without a natural heir were annexed by Britain.

[18] The city was relatively calm amid the regional unrest in the summer of 1857, but the Rani conducted a Haldi Kumkum ceremony with pomp in front of all the women of Jhansi to provide assurance to her subjects, and to convince them that the British were cowards and not to be afraid of them.

In June 1857, rebels of the 12th Bengal Native Infantry seized the Star Fort of Jhansi, containing the treasure and magazine,[21] and after persuading the British to lay down their arms by promising them no harm, broke their word and massacred 40 to 60 European officers of the garrison along with their wives and children.

[22][23] An army doctor, Thomas Lowe, wrote after the rebellion characterizing her as the "Jezebel of India ... the young rani upon whose head rested the blood of the slain".

[24] Four days after the massacre the sepoys left Jhansi, having obtained a large sum of money from the Rani, and having threatened to blow up the palace where she lived.

Following this, as the only source of authority in the city the Rani felt obliged to assume the administration and wrote to Major Erskine, commissioner of the Saugor division explaining the events which had led her to do so.

She set up a foundry to cast cannon to be used on the walls of the fort and assembled forces including some from former feudatories of Jhansi and elements of the mutineers which were able to defeat the invaders in August 1857.

When the British forces finally arrived in March they found it well-defended and the fort had heavy guns which could fire over the town and nearby countryside.

[35] On 17 June in Kotah-ki-Serai near the Phool Bagh of Gwalior, a squadron of the 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, under Captain Heneage, fought the large Indian force commanded by Rani Lakshmibai, who was trying to leave the area.

In this engagement, according to an eyewitness account, Rani Lakshmibai put on a sowar's uniform and attacked one of the hussars; she was unhorsed and also wounded, probably by his sabre.

[37][38] According to another tradition Rani Lakshmibai, the Queen of Jhansi, dressed as a cavalry leader, was badly wounded; not wishing the British to capture her body, she told a hermit to burn it.

In the British report of this battle, Hugh Rose commented that Rani Lakshmibai is "personable, clever and beautiful" and she is "the most dangerous of all Indian leaders".

[39][40] London, 1878: Whatever her faults in British eyes may have been, her countrymen will ever remember that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion and that she lived and died for her country, we cannot forget her contribution to India.

Together with others who had survived the battle (about 60 retainers with 60 camels and 22 horses), he fled from the camp of Rao Sahib of Bithur and as the village people of Bundelkhand dared not aid them for fear of reprisals from the British, they were forced to live in the forest and suffer many privations.

The regiment was named in honor of Rani Lakshmibai, the warrior queen of Jhansi who fought against British colonial rule in India in 1857.

The women were trained in military tactics, physical fitness, and marksmanship, and were deployed in Burma and other parts of Southeast Asia to fight against the British.

[44] A popular stanza from it reads: बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी, खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।[45]Translation: "From the Bundele Harbolas' mouths we heard stories / She fought like a man, she was the Rani of Jhansi.

"[46] 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.