Phra Chao Uthong (under the name of Phra Ramathibodi) became King at
Ayuthia in A.D. 1350 and thereafter was fully occupied in bringing the
outlying states and provinces into line, in organizing his government,
and in setting up a system of law, parts of which continue in use to
the present time. Before his death in 1369, he had brought together
the whole of the components of the Sukhothai-Sawankhalok Kingdom and
had welded them so closely together that, when Cambodia, annoyed by
the independent attitude of what was theoretically its vassal, sent an
army to reassert its rights of suzerainty, the united Siamese not only
defeated the enemy but pursued him well within the confines of his own
country.
Under Ramathibodi's successors the Kingdom continued to prosper.
During the next two centuries, Buddhism definitely succeeded
Brahmanism as the popular religion throughout the country and great
treasure was expended in beautifying the cities by the erection of
graceful temples and reliquaries in the adapted Cambodian style which
persists in Siam to this day.
About A.D. 1527, the King of Pegu, enraged by the exploits of Siamese
marauders in his frontier province of Tavoy, collected an army at
Moulmein and sent it into Siam under the leadership of the heir
apparent, Bureng Naung. Defeating the Siamese near Supanburi, the
Peguan prince advanced to the walls of Ayuthia itself; so stout was
the resistance, however, and so prolonged the siege that his supply
system broke down and he was forced to return to his own country,
fighting rear-guard actions and losing heavily all the way. After 3
years, Bureng Naung, now King, taking the assumption by the King of
Siam of the title "Lord of the White Elephants" as a casus belli,
again attacked Siam with a great army and once more besieged the
capital. This time, to save the city, the "Lord of the White
Elephants" was compelled to negotiate and to turn over several of the
animals in question to the invader, who then retired. Only a few years
later, however, the Siamese King repudiated Peguan suzerainty; Bureng
Naung returned, by treachery gained admission to the city, sacked and
partially destroyed it, and sent the King, with many of his followers,
in chains to Pegu. Leaving the Siamese governor of Pitsanulok as his
viceroy in Ayuthia, Bureng Naung pressed on to subdue other cities but
was scarcely out of sight when a Cambodian army, burning to avenge
recent defeats and to reestablish ancient rights, appeared to begin a
new siege of Ayuthia; this enemy was repulsed but not before the
unprotected districts around the capital had been thoroughly looted.
Just now, when, attacked from east and west, her provinces despoiled
and her people fugitive or captive, Ayuthia seemed doomed to early
extinction, a hero arose to redeem her. This was Phra Naret, a son of
Bureng Naung's viceroy, who, appointed by his father governor of
Pitsanulok, in his youth saw military service defending his province
against robber bands and in the wars of Nanda Bureng, son and
successor to Bureng Naung, against the rebellious province of Ava. By
his ability bringing upon himself the dislike of the Peguan King, to
such a degree that his life was endangered, he revolted (ca. A.D.
1565) and led a Siamese army to sack and pillage Tenasserim and
Martaban. Two punitive expeditions sent against him were signally
defeated by Naret, who was then crowned King of Siam and at once began
to restore Ayuthia and to repopulate it by captives brought from
outlying districts which had attempted to cast off their allegiance.
Having established his supremacy at home, Naret inflicted a crushing
defeat upon yet another Burmese army sent to subdue him and then, to
avenge the humiliations imposed upon his country during her time of
weakness, led a strong force against Cambodia; this campaign ended
with the destruction of the Cambodian capital and the carrying of the
King and many of his people captive to Ayuthia, where the former was
executed. Finally, some time about the year 1600, Naret, at the head
of a great army, invaded Burma with the object of conquering the whole
of that country, but this was not to be: the King met death in one of
the early battles and his son and heir, abandoning the enterprise,
returned to his own dominions. But within the space of not more than
35 years, Naret had raised Siam from a condition of almost complete
ruin to a position of ascendancy over all the neighboring kingdoms and
he left to his successors a great empire which was to endure for a
period of 175 years.
During this period, Siam was becoming well known to the European
merchant adventurers trading in the Orient under the flags of
Portugal, Holland, and England. Early in the sixteenth century, the
Malay Kingdom of Malacca had been conquered by the Portuguese;
individuals of this nation had penetrated to Ayuthia and Pegu and had
served in the ranks of the contending armies during the Siamo-Burmese
wars; Portuguese factories had been established at the various Siamese
ports. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portuguese
missionaries arrived at Ayuthia, where they were well received and
given land for their churches. About this time also, English and Dutch
ships first appeared in Siamese waters and a bitter rivalry soon
sprang up among the foreigners, who competed for commercial supremacy
and the favor of the King, without which trade could scarcely be
carried on at all. This antagonism resulted in endless quarreling and
even in desperate battles between the representatives of the rival
powers and by 1634 the Dutch had so far prospered that they had built
a fortified factory at Amsterdam on the river Chao Phraya, carried on
extensive commerce throughout Siam, and monopolized the carrying trade
to China and Japan. With the taking of Malacca by the Dutch in 1641,
the influence of the Portuguese soon declined, although many
individuals continued to live in Siam, where such surnames as da Silva
and da Jesus persist to this day in families which no longer show any
other trace of European ancestry. The Dutch rapidly succeeded to all
the commercial outposts of Portugal in Siam, devoting themselves
chiefly to trade and taking little or no interest in internal
politics, except insofar as their commercial prospects were affected.
The first formal treaty contracted by Siam with any western power was
that entered into, in the year 1664, with the representatives of the
Dutch East India Company, authorized by the Dutch Republic. Dutch
trade with Siam continued until A.D. 1706, when the royal favor was
finally lost for good and the Company's agents expelled from the
Kingdom.
In 1659 there arrived at Ayuthia one of the most extraordinary figures
in the history of Siam. This was Constantine Phaulcon, the son of a
Cephalonian innkeeper, who ran away to sea in an English ship and,
eventually making his way to Siam, stayed there to become Chief
Minister of the Crown and the trusted adviser of the King, Phra Narai.
Under Phaulcon's able guidance the country for a time prospered
greatly. Not only were the Portuguese and Dutch merchants, already
established, encouraged to extend the scope of their enterprise but
the English and French East India Companies were invited to set up
factories at the capital. The King himself, in partnership with his
First Minister, operated a profitable fleet of merchantmen and became
the principal trader of his own country.
About this time it came to be believed in Europe that the whole of the
Far East was ripe for conversion to Christianity and a Roman Catholic
Mission was organized in France to put this ambitious design into
effect. Ayuthia, possessing a cosmopolitan population and strong
commercial ties with Japan, China, the Sunda Isles, and India, was
considered the best central location for the project and, in A.D.
1662, three French bishops with a staff of priests arrived there to
inaugurate the work. These ecclesiastics were favorably received by
the King and within a short period the mission had acquired a
considerable number of adherents. In order further to strengthen their
position, however, they sought and obtained the official support of
Louis XIV of France, who exchanged complimentary letters and embassies
with the Siamese monarch. Phaulcon, in the confidence of the bishops,
was thus brought into correspondence with Colbert, Louis's minister,
and before long the French King's interest was centered on more
material aspects of Siam than its spiritual welfare. A scheme was set
afoot for securing the supremacy of France in the Asiatic kingdom
through the agency of the priests, who, apparently believing that,
with material support from Louis, they could convert the King himself
to Christianity, were not unwilling to do their part. Six French
men-of-war and a body of 1,400 soldiers were therefore dispatched to
Siam, ostensibly to assist in intimidating the Dutch, who were at the
time causing trouble from their fortress of Malacca. The two principal
ports of Bangkok and Mergui were garrisoned by a part of these French
troops and the King was induced to attach another part of them to his
own person. The missionaries then began to exhort the King with all
the eloquence at their command but found that his conversion was a
more difficult matter than had been expected. Their obstinate
insistence with him and Phaulcon's ascendancy over him ended by
alarming the Siamese, and when remonstrances against the
ever-increasing number of foreigners in the service of the State went
disregarded, a conspiracy was formed among high officers of the Court.
Phra Narai was driven from the throne, Phaulcon was killed, the
European troops were driven from the country, and Siam was saved from
becoming the keystone of a great French empire in the Far East.
[Illustration: 1. A primitive type of cart still is used in remote
districts. The teak logs shown in the background must be carted or
dragged by elephants from the forest to the nearest large stream.]
[Illustration: 2. Elephants are employed to break up a jam of logs at
the estacades of a bridge.]
[Illustration: 1. An extensive commerce is carried on between the
riverine towns by small boats. The water wheel of bamboo (left)
irrigates a garden on the shore.]
[Illustration: 2. The graceful temples of Thailand are adorned with
lacquer, gold leaf, and colored glass.]
[Illustration: 1. Ransacked reliquaries dot the jungles of Thailand.]
[Illustration: 2. The high altar of a Buddhist shrine.]
[Illustration: 1. Royalty visits Chiengmai.]
[Illustration: 2. A princely funeral at Chiengmai. White is the color
of mourning.]
The Kingdom of Ayuthia continued to prosper during several subsequent
reigns marked by friendly relations with European nations, including
the French, and a preoccupation with foreign commerce. But, about the
year 1759, the Burmese, reunited, after a long period of internal
strife, under the martial Alaung Phra, initiated hostilities against
the Siamese by an invasion which brought them to the walls of the
capital; the Burmese King, however, sickened at the beginning of the
siege and died before he could regain his own country. In 1766, under
his son, Sin Byu Shin, war was resumed by simultaneous marches on
Ayuthia from north and south and the city was again invested. Phra
Sucharit, the Siamese ruler, was unfamiliar with warfare but
encouraged his people to a spirited resistance, hoping that relief
would be afforded by the annual floods, coming in the wake of the
rains; the enemy merely patrolled the waters in hundreds of boats and,
as they subsided, threw up new earthworks even nearer the walls. In
the spring of 1767, Sucharit, disheartened, attempted to treat with
them but was rebuffed and when, with the arrival of reinforcements,
the Burmese made an assault in force, the weakened city fell to them
and was given over to looting, flames, and slaughter. The King,
unattended, escaped in the confusion but was to die of exposure only a
few days later.