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The East India Company seized the kingdom of Sardhana on the death of the Begum Sumru of Sardhana in 1836. Born 1751 she became the bibi of German mercenary Walter Reinhardt, known as "Sombre" (Indianised to "Sumru", or "Somru") after his severe expression. When the Mughal emperor gave Reinhardt a large estate in the Doab north of Delhi, his begum went with him and turned the village of Sardhana into their capital, with a ruling class drawn from both Mughal noblemen and more than 200 French and central European mercenaries of mixed Jewish and Catholic extraction. After Sombre's death, his begum ruled in his stead, partly from Sardhana and partly from her large Delhi palace. She converted from Islam to Catholicism and built the largest cathedral in northern India.