Editing Kingdom of Great Britain (section)

====India====
[[File:Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Lord Clive]] of the East India Company meeting his ally [[Mir Jafar]] after their decisive victory at the [[Battle of Plassey]] in 1757]]

[[India]] was not directly ruled by the British government, instead certain parts were seized by the [[East India Company]], a private, for-profit corporation, with its own army. The "John Company" (as it was nicknamed) took direct control of half of India and built friendly relations with the other half, which was controlled by numerous local princes. Its goal was trade, and vast profits for the Company officials, not the building of the British empire. Company interests expanded during the 18th century to include control of territory as the old [[Mughal Empire]] declined in power and the East India Company battled for the spoils with the [[Louis XIV's East India Company|French East India Company]] (''Compagnie française des Indes orientales'') during the [[Carnatic Wars]] of the 1740s and 1750s. Victories at the [[Battle of Plassey]] and [[Battle of Buxar]] by [[Robert Clive]] gave the Company control over [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal]] and made it the major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of territories under its control, ruling either directly or in cooperation with local princes. Although Britain itself only had a small standing army, the company had a large and well trained force, the [[presidency armies]], with British officers commanding native Indian troops (called [[sepoys]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lawson |first=Philip |title=The East India Company: A History |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge}}; {{Cite journal |first=Philip J. |last=Stern |title=History and historiography of the English East India Company: Past, present, and future! |journal=History Compass |volume=7 |issue=4 |date=2009 |pages=1146–1180|doi=10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00617.x }}</ref>