Rise
Hyder Ali came from a family of soldiers and rose through the Mysore army on ability rather than birth. By 1761 he held real power, the Wodeyar raja reduced to a figurehead.
He is said to have been unable to read. He was nonetheless among the most effective military administrators of eighteenth-century India, rebuilding Mysore’s army on French lines and financing it from a reformed revenue system.
The wars begin
He fought the Company twice. The First Anglo-Mysore War ended in 1769 with Hyder dictating terms at the gates of Madras. He died in 1782, mid-way through the second, leaving the war and the state to his son.