king, the Portuguese was the real rulers in
the kingdom of Kotte. As king Dharamapala
assigned his kingship to the Portuguese from a
deed of gift, the Portuguese had a legal right to
rule Kotte after the king’s death.
Veediye Bandara
Veediye Bandara, who had married Princess
Samudradevi, who was the daughter of king
Buvanekabahu, was a great warrior. During the
very beginning of the ruling of king Dharmapala,
his son, he arose against the Portuguese due to
looting of the Kotte palace and various injustices
done to Kotte people by the Portuguese.
Therefore, he was arrested and imprisoned in
the Colombo fort by the Portuguese. But, the
wife of Veediye Bandara made a tunnel which
led to the cell where he was detained and freed
him. Afterwards he fled to Pelenda area in Pas
Yodun Koralaya and started a fight against the
Portuguese by building a fort there. The people of
Kotte, who were despondent of the Portuguese,
supported Veediye Bandara. The Portuguese
suffered many losses due to the attacks of Veediye
Bandara. Further, Veediye Bandara’s actions were
a great nuisance to the rulers of Seethawaka.
Therefore, king Mayadunne and the Portuguese
combined and invaded the fort of Pelenda and
defeated Veediye Bandara. Veediye Bandara,
who had fled to Kanda Udarata afterwards, was
killed in a conflict later in Jaffna.
Kingdom of Seethawaka
Mayadunne, who was the ruler of Seethawaka,
continued a policy against the Portuguese from
the very beginning of that kingdom. When
the power of the Portuguese developed in the
kingdom of Kotte, king Mayadunnne tended to
fight both with the Portuguese and the rulers of
Kotte. Therefore, the attacks of Mayadunne were
increased after king Dharmapala became the
ruler of Kotte. As prince Tikiri Bandara, the son
of king Mayadunne offered to give the leadership
to the Seethawaka army as a great warrior, the
army was more strengthened in about 1555. In
1557 Mayadunne launched an attack on the city
of Kotte using all his power. But the Seethawaka
army could not enter the city due to the attacks
of the artillery guns of the Portuguese. Later
Mayadunne followed a policy of attacking the
areas away from Kotte from time to time.
The Seethawaka rulers, who abstained from
massive attacks after the unsuccessful effort
of besieging and attacking the city of Kotte,
launched an onset to attack both Kotte and
Colombo fort at once. In this, there was a
horrendous fight between the Sinhala army led
by prince Tikiri and the Portuguese in the paddy
field in Mulleriyawa. The Portuguese suffered
a debacle in this fight which lasted for a whole
day. It is reported that around 1600 Portuguese
soldiers were killed in this fight. This is one of the
biggest battle losses of Portuguese in an Asian
country.Due to the occasional attacks from Seethawaka
on the city of Kotte, King Dharmapala abandoned
the city and shifted to the Colombo fort around- And also, in about 1581 king Mayadunne
died and prince Tikiri acceded to the throne
of Seethawaka in the name of ‘Rajasighe’. No
sooner he became the king, he repulsed the
then ruler of Kandy, Karaliyedde Bandara, and
annexed the Kandyan kingdom to Seethawaka.
Accordingly, king Rajasinghe was able to confine
the Portuguese power to the Colombo fort and
a few other areas by about 1582. Therefore,
many areas of the Kotte kingdom, kingdom of
Rayigama and the whole Kandyan kingdom
were under the Seethawaka kingdom.
King Rajasinghe attempted to besiege and
repulse the Portuguese from this country twice.
But, king’s effort was unsuccessful due to the
weaponry power of the Portuguese and the
support they had from Gowa, which was the
east headquarters of the Portuguese. Though
in 1587 king Rajasinghe attempted to enter the
Colombo fort by digging a canal to send the
water of Bere tank to the sea in his second siege,
it too was abortive. One of the reasons for these