A second or subordinate kingship is an anomalous device or provision of
sovereignty peculiar to Siam, Cambodia, and Laos. Inferior in station to
the Supreme King only, and apparently deriving from the throne of the
Phra-batts, to which he may approach so near, a reflected majesty and
prestige not clearly understood by his subjects nor easily defined by
foreigners, the Second King seems to be, nevertheless, belittled by the
very significance of the one exclusive privilege that should distinguish
him,--that of exemption from the customary prostrations before the First
King, whom he may salute by simply raising his hands and joining them
above his head. Here his proper right of royalty begins and ends. The
part that he may play in the drama of government is cast to him in the
necessity, discretion, or caprice of his absolute chief next, and yet so
far, above him; it may be important, insignificant, or wholly omitted.
Like any lesser _ducus_ of the realm, he must appear before his lord
twice a year to renew his oath of allegiance. In law, he is as mere a
subject as the slave who bears his betel-box; or that other slave who,
on his knees, and with averted face, presents his spittoon. In history,
he shall be what circumstance or his own mind may make him: the shadow
or the soul of sovereignty, even as the intellectual and moral weakness
or strength may have been apportioned between him and his colleague.
From his rank he derives no advantage but the _chance_.
[Illustration: The Princess of Chiengmai.]
Somdetch P'hra Pawarendr Ramesr Mahiswarer, the subordinate king of
Siam, who died on the 29th of December, 1865, was the legitimate son of
the supreme king, second of his dynasty, who reigned from 1809 to 1824.
His father had been second king to his grandfather, "grand supreme" of
Siam, and first of the reigning line. His mother was "lawful first queen
consort"; and the late first or major king, Somdetch-P'hra Paramendr
Maha Mongkut, was his elder full brother. Being alike legitimate
offspring of the first queen, these two lads were styled _Somdetch
Chowfas_, "Celestial Royal Princes"; and during the second and third
reigns they were distinguished by the titles of courtesy pertaining to
their royal status and relation, the elder as Chowfa Mongkut, the
younger as Chowfa Chudha-Mani: _Mongkut_ signifying "Royal Crown," and
_Chudha-Mani_ "Royal Hair-pin."
On the death of their father (in 1824), and the accession, by intrigue,
of their elder half-brother, the Chowfa Mongkut entered the Buddhist
priesthood; but his brother, more ardent, inquisitive, and restless,
took active service with the king, in the military as well as in the
diplomatic department of government. He was appointed Superintendent of
Artillery and Malayan Infantry on the one hand; and on the other,
Translator of English Documents and Secretary for English
Correspondence.
In a cautious and verbose sketch of his character and services, written
after his death by his jealous brother, the priest-king, wherein he is
by turns meanly disparaged and damned with faint praise, we find this
curious statement:--
"After that time (1821) he became acquainted with certain parties of
English and East Indian merchants, who made their appearance or first
commenced trading on late of second reign, after the former trade with
Siam which had been stopped or postponed several years in consequence of
some misunderstanding before. He became acquainted with certain parts of
English language and literature, and certain parts of Hindoo or Bengali
language, as sufficient for some unimportant conversation with English
and Indian strangers who were visitors of Siam, upon the latter part of
the reign of his royal father; but his royal father did not know that he
possessed such knowledge of foreign language, which had been concealed
to the native persons in republic affairs, whose jealousy seemed to be
strong against strangers, so he was not employed in any terms with those
strangers foreign affairs,"--that is, during the life of his father, at
whose death he was just sixteen years old.
Early in the third reign he was sent to Meeklong to superintend the
construction of important works of defence near the mouth of the
Meeklong River. He pushed this work with vigor, and completed it in
1835. In 1842 he commanded successfully an expedition against the
Cochin-Chinese, and, in returning, brought with him to Siam many
families of refugees from the eastern coast. Then he was commissioned by
the king to reconstruct, "after Western models," the ancient
fortifications at Paknam; and having to this end engaged a corps of
European engineers and artisans, he eagerly seized the advantage the
situation afforded him, by free and intelligent intercourse with his
foreign assistants, to master the English language,--so that, at his
death, he notably excelled the first king in the facility with which he
spoke, read, and wrote it,--and to improve his acquaintance with the
Western sciences and arts of navigation, naval construction and
armament, coast and inland defence, engineering, transportation, and
telegraphy, the working and casting of iron, etc.
On the 26th of May, 1851, twelve days after the coronation of his elder
brother, the student and priest Maha Mongkut, he was called by the
unanimous voice of "the king and council" to be Second King; and
throughout his subordinate reign his sagacious and alert inquiry, his
quick apprehension, his energetic and liberal spirit of improvement,
engaged the admiration of foreigners; whilst his handsome person, his
generous temper, his gallant preference for the skilful and the brave,
his enthusiasm and princely profusion in sports and shows, endeared him
more and more to his people. Maha Mongkut--at no time inclined to praise
him beyond his deserts, and least of all in the latter years of his
life, imbittered to both by mutual jealousy and distrust--wrote almost
handsomely of him under the pressure of this public opinion.
"He made everything new and beautiful, and of curious appearance, and of
a good style of architecture, and much stronger than they had formerly
been constructed by his three predecessors, the second kings of the last
three reigns, for the space of time that he was second king. He had
introduced and collected many and many things, being articles of great
curiosity, and things useful for various purposes of military acts and
affairs, from Europe and America, China, and other states, and placed
them in various departments and rooms or buildings suitable for those
articles, and placed officers for maintaining and preserving the various
things neatly and carefully. He has constructed several buildings in
European fashion and Chinese fashion, and ornamented them with various
useful ornaments for his pleasure, and has constructed two steamers in
manner of men-of-war, and two steam-yachts, and several rowing
state-boats in Siamese and Cochin-Chinese fashion, for his pleasure at
sea and rivers of Siam; and caused several articles of gold and silver
being vessels and various wares and weapons to be made up by the Siamese
and Malayan goldsmiths, for employ and dress of himself and his family,
by his direction and skilful contrivance and ability. He became
celebrated and spread out more and more to various regions of the
Siamese kingdom, adjacent States around, and far-famed to foreign
countries, even at far distance, as he became acquainted with many and
many foreigners, who came from various quarters of the world where his
name became known to most as a very clever and bravest Prince of
Siam....
"As he pleased mostly with firing of cannon and acts of Marine power and
seamen, which he has imitated to his steamers which were made in manner
of the man-of-war, after he has seen various things curious and useful,
and learned Marine customs on board the foreign vessels of war, his
steamers conveyed him to sea, where he has enjoyed playing of firing in
cannon very often....
"He pleased very much in and was playful of almost everything, some
important and some unimportant, as riding on Elephants and Horses and
Ponies, racing of them and racing of rowing boats, firing on birds and
beasts of prey, dancing and singing in various ways pleasantly, and
various curiosity of almost everything, and music of every description,
and in taming of dogs, monkeys, &c., &c., that is to say briefly that he
has tested almost everything eatable except entirely testing of Opium
and play.
"Also he has visited regions of Northeastern Province of Sarapury and
Gorath very often for enjoyment of pleasant riding on Elephants and
Horses, at forests in chasing animals of prey, fowling, and playing
music and singing with Laos people of that region and obtaining young
wives from there."
What follows is not more curious as to its form of expression than
suspicious as to its meaning and motive. To all who know with what
pusillanimity at times the First King shrank from the approach of
Christian foreigners,--especially the French priests,--with what
servility in his moody way he courted their favor, it will appear of
very doubtful sincerity. To those who are familiar with the
circumstances under which it was written, and to whom the attitude of
jealous reserve that the brothers occupied toward each other at the time
of the Second King's death was no secret, it may seem (even after due
allowance is made for the prejudices or the obligations of the priest)
to cover an insidious, though scarcely adroit, design to undermine the
honorable reputation the younger enjoyed among the missionaries, and the
cordial friendship with which he had been regarded by several of the
purest of them. Certainly it is suspiciously "of a piece" with other
passages, quoted further on, in which the king's purpose to disparage
the merits of his brother, and damage the influence of his name abroad,
is sufficiently transparent. In this connection the reader may derive a
ray of light from the fact that on the birth of the Second King's first
son, an American missionary, who was on terms of intimacy with the
father, named the child "George Washington"; and that child, the Prince
George Washington Krom Mu'n Pawarwijagan, is the present Second King of
Siam. But to Maha Mongkut, and his "art of putting things":--
"He was rumored to be baptized or near to be baptized in Christianity,
but the fact it is false. He was a Buddhist, but his faith and belief
changed very often in favor of various sects of Buddhism by the
association of his wives and various families and of persons who were
believers in various sects of the established religion of the Siamese
and Laos, Peguan and Burmese countries. Why should he become a
Christian? when his pleasures consisted in polygamy and enjoyment, and
with young women who were practised in pleasant dancing and singing, and
who could not be easily given up at any time.
"He was very desirous of having his sons to be English scholars and to
be learned the art of speaking, reading and writing in English well like
himself, but he said he cannot allow his sons to enter the Christian
Missionary-School, as he feared his descendants might be induced to the
Christianity in which he did not please to believe."
Pawarendr Ramesr had ever been the favorite and darling of his mother,
and it was in his infancy that the seeds of that ignoble jealousy were
sown between the royal brothers, which nourished so rankly and bore such
noxious fruit in their manhood. From his tenderest years the younger
prince was remarkable for his personal beauty and his bright
intelligence, and before his thirteenth birthday had already learned all
that his several masters could teach him. From an old priest, named
P'hra Naitt, I gathered many pleasant anecdotes of his childhood.
For example, he related with peculiar pride how the young prince, then
but twelve years old, being borne one day in state through the eastern
gate of the city to visit his mother's lotos-gardens, observed an old
man, half blind, resting by the roadside. Commanding his bearers to
halt, he alighted from his sedan and kindly accosted the poor creature.
Finding him destitute and helpless, a stranger and a wayfarer in the
land, he caused him to be seated in his own sedan, and borne to the
gardens, while he followed on foot. Here he had the old man bathed, clad
in fresh linen, and entertained with a substantial meal; and afterward
he took his astonished client into his service, as keeper of his cattle.
Later in life the generous and romantic prince diverted himself with the
adventurous beneficence of Haroun al Raschid, visiting the poor in
disguise, listening to the recital of their sufferings and wrongs, and
relieving them with ready largesse of charity and justice; and nothing
so pleased and flattered him as to be called, in his assumed name of Nak
Pratt, "the wise," to take part in their sports and fêtes. The
affectionate enthusiasm with which the venerable poonghee remembered his
royal pupil was inspiring; and to see his eyes sparkle and his face glow
with sympathetic triumph, as he described the lad's exploits of strength
or skill in riding, fencing, boxing, was a fine sight. But it was with
saddened look and tone that he whispered to me, that, at the prince's
birth, the astrologer who cast his horoscope had foretold for him an
unnatural death. This, he said, was the secret of the watchful devotion
and imprudent partiality his mother had always manifested for him.
For such a prince to come into even the empty name of power was to
become subject to the evil eye of his fraternal lord and rival, for
whose favor officious friends and superserviceable lackeys contended in
scandalous and treacherous spyings of the Second King's every action.
Yet, meanly beset as he was, he contrived to find means and opportunity
to enlarge his understanding and multiply his attainments; and in the
end his proficiency in languages, European and Oriental, became as
remarkable as it was laudable. It was by Mr. Hunter, secretary to the
prime minister, that he was introduced to the study of the English
language and literature, and by this gentleman's intelligent aid he
procured the text-books which constituted the foundation of his
educational course.
In person he was handsome, for a Siamese; of medium stature, compact and
symmetrical figure, and rather dark complexion. His conversation and
deportment denoted the cultivation, delicacy, and graceful poise of an
accomplished gentleman; and he delivered his English with a correctness
and fluency very noticeably free from the peculiar spasmodic effort that
marked his royal brother's exploits in the language of Shakespeare.
In his palace, which, he had rebuilt after the model of an English
nobleman's residence, he led the life of a healthy, practical, and
systematic student. His library, more judiciously selected than that of
his brother, abounded in works of science, embracing the latest
discoveries. Here he passed many hours, cultivating a sound acquaintance
with the results of investigation and experiment in the Western world.
His partiality for English literature in all its branches was extreme.
The freshest publications of London found their way to his tables, and
he heartily enjoyed the creations of Dickens.
For robust and exhilarating enjoyment, however, he had recourse to
hunting expeditions, and martial exercises in the drilling of his
private troops. Punctually at daybreak every morning he appeared on the
parade-ground, and proceeded to review his little army with scrupulous
precision, according to European tactics; after which he led his
well-trained files to their barracks within the palace walls, where the
soldiers exchanged their uniform for a working-dress. Then he marched
them to the armory, where muskets, bayonets, and sabres were brought out
and severely scoured. That done, the men were dismissed till the morrow.
Among his courtiers were several gentlemen of Siam and Laos, who had
acquired such a smattering of English as qualified them to assist the
prince in his scientific diversions. Opposite the armory stood a pretty
little cottage, quite English-looking, lighted with glass windows, and
equipped with European furniture. Over the entrance to this quaint
tenement hung a painted sign, in triumphant English, "WATCHES AND CLOCKS
MADE AND REPAIRED HERE"; and hither came frequently the Second King and
his favorites, to pursue assiduously their harmless occupation of
_horlogerie_. Sometimes this eccentric entertainment was diversified
with music, in which his Majesty took a leading part, playing with taste
and skill on the flute, and several instruments of the Laos people.
Such a prince should have been happy, in the innocence of his pastimes
and the dignity of his pursuits. But the same accident of birth and
station to which he owed his privileges and his opportunities imposed
its peculiar disabilities and hindrances. His troubles were the troubles
of a second king, who chanced to be also an ardent and aspiring man.
Weary with disappointment, disheartened in his honorable longing for
just appreciation, vexed with the caprice and suspicions of his elder
brother; oppressed by the ever-present tyranny of the thought--so hard
for such a man to bear--that the woman he loved best in the land he was
inexorably forbidden to marry, because, being a princess of the first
rank, she might be offered and accepted to grace the harem of his
brother; a mere prisoner of state, watched by the baleful eye of
jealousy, and traduced by the venal tongues of courtiers; dwelling in a
torment of uncertainty as to the fate to which his brother's explosive
temper and irresponsible power might devote him, hoping for no repose or
safety but in his funeral-urn,--he began to grow hard and defiant, and
that which, in the native freedom of his soul, should have been his
noble steadfastness degenerated into ignoble obstinacy.
Among the innumerable mean torments with which his pride was persecuted
was the continual presence of a certain doctor, who, by the king's
command, attended him at all times and places, compelling him to use
remedies that were most distasteful to him.
He was gallantly kind and courteous toward women; no act of cruelty to
any woman was ever attributed to him. His children he ruled wisely,
though somewhat sternly, rendering his occasional tenderness and
indulgence so much the more precious and delightful to them.
Never had Siam a more popular prince. He was the embodiment of the most
hopeful qualities, moral and intellectual, of his nation; especially was
he the exponent and promise of its most progressive tendencies; and his
people regarded him with love and reverence, as their trusty stay and
support. His talents as a statesman commanded the unqualified admiration
of foreigners; and it was simply the jealous and tyrannical temper of
Maha Mongkut that forced him to retire from all participation in the
affairs of government.
At last the mutual reserve and distrust of the royal brothers broke out
in open quarrel, provoked by the refusal of the First King to permit the
Second to borrow from the royal treasury a considerable sum of money. On
the day after his order was dishonored, the prince set out with his
congenial and confidential courtiers on a hunting expedition to the Laos
province of Chiengmai, scornfully threatening to entrap one of the royal
white elephants, and sell it to his Supreme Majesty for the sum he would
not loan.
At Chiengmai he was regally entertained by the tributary prince of that
province; and no sooner was his grievance known, than the money he
required was laid at his feet. Too manly to accept the entire sum, he
borrowed but a portion of it; and instead of taking it out of the
country, decided to sojourn there for a time, that he might spend it to
the advantage of the people. To this end he selected a lovely spot in
the vicinity of Chiengmai, called Saraburee, itself a city of some
consideration, where bamboo houses line the banks of a beautiful river,
that traverses teak forests alive with large game. On an elevation near
at hand the Second King erected a palace substantially fortified, which
he named Ban Sitha (the Home of the Goddess Sitha), and caused a canal
to be cut to the eastern slope.
Here he indulged freely, and on an imposing scale, in his favorite
pastime of hunting, and privately took to wife the daughter of the king
of Chiengmai, the Princess Sunartha Vismita. And here he was happy, only
returning to Bangkok when called thither by affairs of state, or to take
the semi-annual oath of allegiance.
Among the prince's concubines at this time was a woman named Kliep,
envious, intriguing, and ambitious, who by consummate arts had obtained
control of his Majesty's _cuisine_,--an appointment of peculiar
importance and trust in the household of an Oriental prince. Finding
that by no feminine devices could she procure the influence she coveted
over her master's mind and affections, she finally had recourse to an
old and infamous sorcerer, styled Khoon Hâte-nah ("Lord of Future
Events"), an adept of the black art much consulted by women of rank from
all parts of the country; and he, in consideration of an extraordinary
fee, prepared for her a variety of charms, incantations, philters, to be
administered to the prince, in whose food daily, for years, she mixed
the abominable nostrums. The poison did its work slowly but surely, and
his sturdy life was gradually undermined. His strength quite gone, and
his spirit broken, his despondency became so profound that he lost all
taste for the occupations and diversions that had once delighted him,
and sought relief in restless changing from one palace to another, and
in consulting every physician he could find.
It was during a visit to his favorite residence at Saraburee that the
signs of approaching dissolution appeared, and the king's physician,
fearing he might die there, took hurried steps to remove him to his
palace at Bangkok. He was bound in a sedan, and lowered from his high
chamber in the castle into his barge on the canal at the foot of the
cliff; and so, with all his household in train, transported to the
palace of Krom Hluang Wongse, physician to the king, and one of his
half-brothers. Now miserably unnerved, the prince, once so patient,
brave, and proud, threw his arms round his kinsman's neck, and, weeping
bitterly, implored him to save him. But he was presently removed to his
own palace, and laid in a chamber looking to the east.
That night the prince expressed a wish to see his royal brother. The
king hastened to his bedside in company with his Excellency Chow Phya
Sri Sury-Wongse, the Kralahome, or prime minister; and then and there a
silent and solemn reconciliation took place. No words were spoken; only
the brothers embraced each other, and the elder wept bitterly. But from
the facts brought to light in that impressive meeting and parting, it
was made plain that the Second King died by slow poison, administered by
the woman Kliep,--plain to all but the Second King himself, who died in
ignorance of the means by which the tragic prophecy of his horoscope had
been made good.
In the very full account of his brother's death which Maha Mongkut
thought it necessary to write, he was careful to conceal from the public
the true cause of the calamity, fearing the foreign populace, and, most
of all, the Laotians and Peguans, who were devoted to the prince, and
might attach suspicion to himself, on the ground of his notorious
jealousy of the Second King. The royal physicians and the Supreme
Council were sworn to secrecy; and the woman Kliep, and her accomplice
Khoon Hâte-nah, together with nine female slaves, were tortured and
publicly paraded through the environs of Bangkok, though their crime was
never openly named. Afterward they were thrown into an open boat, towed
out on the Gulf of Siam, and there abandoned to the mercy of winds and
waves, or death by starvation. Among the women of the palace the current
report was, that celestial avengers had slain the murderous crew with
arrows of lightning and spears of fire.
In his Majesty's account of the last days of his royal brother, we have
the characteristic queerness of his English, and a scarcely less
characteristic passage of Pecksniffian cant:--
"The lamentable patient Second King ascertained himself that his
approaching death was inevitable; it was great misfortune to him and his
family indeed. His eldest son Prince George [Footnote: George
Washington.] Krom Mu'n Pawarwijagan, aged 27 years on that time, became
very sick of painful rheumatism by which he has his body almost steady
on his seat and bed, immovable to and fro, himself, since the month of
October, 1865, when his father was absent from Bangkok, being at Ban
Sitha as aforesaid. When his royal father returned from Ban Sitha he
arrived at his palace at Bangkok on 6th December. He can only being
lifted by two or three men and placed in the presence of his father who
was very ill, but the eldest son forenamed prince was little better, so
before death of his father as he can be raised to be stood by two men
and can cribble slowly on even or level surface, by securing and
supporting of two men on both sides.
"When his father became worse and approaching the point of death, upon
that time his father can see him scarcely; wherefore the Second King, on
his being worse, has said to his eldest and second daughters, the half
sisters of the eldest son, distempered so as he cannot be in the
presence of his father without difficulty, that he (the Second King)
forenamed on that time was hopeless and that he could not live more than
a few days. He did not wish to do his last will regarding his family and
property, particularly as he was strengthless to speak much, and
consider anything deeply and accurately: he beg'd to entreat all his
sons, daughters, and wives that none should be sorry for his death,
which comes by natural course, and should not fear for misery of
difficulty after his demise. All should throw themselves under their
faithful and affectionate uncle, the Supreme King of Siam, for
protection, in whom he had heartfelt confidence that he will do well to
his family after his death, as such the action or good protection to
several families of other princes and princesses in the royalty, who
deceased before. He beg'd only to recommend his sons and daughters, that
they should be always honest and faithful to his elder full brother, the
Supreme King of Siam, by the same affection as to himself, and that they
should have much more affection and respect toward Paternal relative
persons in royalty, than toward their maternal relative persons, who are
not royal descendants of his ancestors....
"On the 29th December 1865, in the afternoon, the Second King invited
His Majesty the Supreme King, his elder full brother, and his Excellency
Chow Phya Sri Sury-wongse Samuha P'hra-Kralahome, the Prime Minister,
who is the principal head of the Government and royal cousin, to seat
themselves near to his side on his bedstead where he lay, and other
principals of royalty and nobility, to seat themselves in that room
where he was lying, that they might be able to ascertain his speech by
hearing. Then he delivered his family and followers and the whole of his
property to His Majesty and His Excellency for protection and good
decision, according to consequences which they would well observe."
Not a word of that royal reconcilement, of that remorseful passion of
tears, of that mute mystery of humanity, the secret spell of a burdened
mother's love working too late in the hearts, of her headstrong boys!
Not a word of that crowning embrace, which made the subordinate king
supreme, by the grace of dying and forgiving!