Two centuries and one year after the birth of Rama II. It seems to be a good time to remember the positive. Things had been off course but were coming together in a way familiar to modern Thailand. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
King Rama II was toward the end of the time that the Kingdom was not open to Europeans or Chinese. There is an understandable tendency to romanticize the Royal Court for their poetry and fine palaces. I will be talking more below about succession craziness and constant wars with Burma, but that doesn’t make what the Thais may prefer to remember wrong.
Todays stamp is issue A112, a 50 Satang stamp issued by Thailand on December 30th, 1968. It was a single stamp issue honoring a year and a half late the birth bicentury of King Rama I. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
From 1350-1768 Siam was ruled by the Ayuthaya Kingdom based in the city of Ayuthaya and extending into modern Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia. In the last days, Ayuthayra was conquered by Burma and Ayuthaya leadership absconded to Bangkok.
There was still Siamese fighting the Burmese including new self declared King Taksin and his military commander the future King Rama I. It is a blessing to this writer that the current Royal line all deem themselves Rama because their Thai names are unspellable and I am not much of a cut and paister. After 15 years on the Throne and the Burmese temporarily chased off, there was a coup and the military commander declared himself King Rama I.
The rules of succession in Siam called for his oldest legitimate son be the next King. The Royal Court however was a pretty wild place and in addition to the Crown Prince’s wife and her legitimate offspring, there was the future Rama IIs relationship with Princess Bunrod, a younger sister by another mother. Finding out that Princess Bunrod was 4 months pregnant, she has banished from the Palace by her and his father Rama I. The Crown Prince begged his father’s forgiveness and negotiated her return as an official concubine. The baby ended up dying shortly after birth.
When King Rama I died in 1809, Rama II was named King. It was now his choice and he promoted his sister/concubine Bunrod to be Queen. She then busied herself making new heirs. His ascension to the Throne caused some troubles. The son of former King Taksin also declared himself King and upon hearing of the death of Rama I, the Burmese again invaded and took what is now called Phuket Island.
One thing Rama had a lot of was sons and he appointed his original heir Prince Tub to be military commander and deal with the challenges of Taksin II and the Burmese. Prince Tub was successful and gained great esteem but was now part of the wrong line.
Suddenly, he had been healthy, Rama II came down with a deadly case of strangury. Strangury is a very painful condition where a person can pass only frequent but very small streams of urine despite an urgent need. Some think the case was a result of poisoning. When he died it was decided to bypass Bunrod’s young heirs in the official line and name the former Prince Tub as King Rama III. Though Rama III had 51 children he had never raised any of his consorts to Queen. Therefore Bunrod’s young heir got his chance and was named Rama IV.
The craziness of the Royal Court, probably inevitable with self proclaimed Kings did not mean there was not an active Thai culture. Rama II supported writer of epic poems on Thai history Sunthorn Phu. When he died, Sunthorn Phu left the Royal Court to become a monk but continued to write. A daughter of Rama IV later looked him up and his works were again officially promoted.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast big Thai families. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.