King Weera Parakrama Narendrasinghe (1707-1739)

With the demise of King Vimaladharmasuriya II, King Weera Parakrama Narendrasinghe ascended the throne. He was the son of King Vimaladharmasuriya II and widely known as ‘the Prince of Kundasale’ since he lived at a palace in Dumabara-Kundasale. He was neither clever nor peace loving. He was a short tempered, playful individual who was addicted to drugs and women and didn’t pay any attention on agriculture, education or religion. During his regime. The chiefs and nobles strengthened their authority.

Once a conspiracy was planned by some chiefs of the court against the king to place a person called Pattiya Bandara on the throne. This was revealed with the assistance of some other chiefs and the suspects were punished. An old friend of the king, called Daskon pioneered in protecting the  king and in return, the king appointed him as the chief adigar in 1709.

The cause for these three conspiracies against the king may be the upheaval of the Nayak power over the kandyan court. Relatives of Nayak princesses who were brought as consorts for the kings lived in the citadel and they engaged in the administrative affairs , causing the Sinhalese chiefs to lose their power. Also, Catholic priests were engaged in missionary activities in Udarata and  people were discontented about this.

And during the reign of King Weera Parakrame Narendrasinghe, a dichotomy occurred among the Kandyan chiefs. This loss of loyalty continued during the reigns of later kings and resulted in the fall of Kandyan kingdom during the latter part of the 18th century.

In the reign of King Weera Parakrame Narendrasinghe, Kandyan chiefs requested the Dutch to open the ports such as  Kalpitiya and Puttlam for trade. But it was not accepted. In  return Kandyans closed the gravets  and odstructed the trade of cinnamon, aricanut  nad pepper. Meanwhile, the people in the low country revolted against the Dutch rule because of exorbitant taxes and Dutch suspected that these revolts are backed by the King.

King Weera Parakrame Narendrasinghe too was married to a Nayak Princess. It was a parctise among Sinhalese rilers since the time of  King Rajasinghe II to marry Narak princesses from Madurai in South India. Thus, with the death of the King in 1739, the throne was ascended by the brother of Nayak princess who was the chief consort of the King, since he had no any sons or brothers. This was done in keeping with the custom of the law of inheritance of the Nayak dynasty by which the brother of the Queen is made heir to the throne. Thus King Weera Parakrame Narendrasinghe ia considered as the last ruler in the lineage of Sinhalese Kings in Sri Lanka.