many owners of the Koh-i-Noor – Shah Shuja among them – have indeed suffered in the most appalling ways. Its owners have variously been blinded, slow-poisoned, tortured to death, burned in oil, threatened with drowning, crowned in molten lead, assassinated by their own family and bodyguards, lost their kingdoms and died in penury. Even inanimate objects associated with the gem seem to have been struck down – witness the cholera epidemic and storms which nearly sank the Medea as it brought the Koh-i-Noor to England, scything through passengers and crew.
