The eighteenth century was a period of great turmoil in the Indian subcontinent. Although the century opened with much of the subcontinent under the control of the Mughul Empire, the death in 1707 of Emperor Aurangzeb resulted in the fracturing of the empire, and a struggle among viceroys and other local rulers among each other for territory. In the 1740s and 1750s French and British colonial companies became more active in these local conflicts, and by the Third Carnatic War (1757–1763) the British had not only gained somewhat solid footholds at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, but they had also marginalised but not eliminated the influence of other colonial powers. Their eastern holdings at Madras were strongly influenced by treaties with the Nawab of Carnatic, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, w