This article has been written for Easy History by Jenna-Mia Weston.
Introduction – The Ships Make Port:
The 17th century saw many developments take place across the Asian continent. In Japan, after years of military strife, Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun in 1603 and the Edo jidai (period) officially began. From 1618 to 1644, China was subject to the Manchu invasions that lead to the eventual fall of the Ming dynasty. In India, construction of the Taj Mahal began in 1632 and was completed in 1658. And amidst all of this plays out our focus: the succession struggles prevalent in Ayutthaya, Siam, present day Thailand.
Geographically placed halfway between India and China, and becoming base to Dutch settlements from 1608, Ayutthaya was something of a cosmopolitan hub in the 1600s. Foreigners from both Europe and the rest of Asia (and influence from the same) were ever-present and left their mark on commercial, military and political matters. Things, however, were not all brilliant for Ayutthaya, which found itself marred by a host of succession struggles. The two we will be focusing here are the ones in 1628 and 1688. They take on a unique flavour due to their location and the considerable influence of foreign actors had on them. This means that, not only are these struggles complicated in their allegiances, but they are rich in sources viewing the events from multiple angles. This makes these events a great tool to analyse, and not just from a South East Asian perspective, where our history comes from and why one chooses one specific positionality over another. By the end, you will be reminded of the fact that who tells our stories is just as significant as the way in which the plots unfold.
Two journal papers and one thesis were consulted in writing up this article, all three of which were adamant on building their work off the recollections and accounts of multiple nationalities that were contemporaneous to the events. After painting in broad strokes what happened in Ayutthaya in the 1628 and 1688 succession struggles, this article will highlight the motives, benefits and pitfalls of French, Siamese and Dutch sources of the events.
“Is This Your King?” – Dual Succession Conflicts in Ayutthaya:
While by no means the only tumultuous handovers of the crown seen in Siam, the succession struggles of 1628 and 1688 are interesting to discuss because of the degree of foreign involvement seen in each. Many scholars consider the 1628 succession struggle as the first in the kingdom to be subject to major foreign involvement, most notably from the Japanese. 1688’s succession struggle is seen by some to be the first true revolution of Thailand, due to the magnitude of the multi-level changes brought about by the event. Here the French and the role of religion in the state took centre-stage. With such deeply polarising events, the bias present in the sources becomes that much more evident.
As stated, for the purposes of this article, the importance of the 1628 succession struggle comes in the form of the extent of foreign involvement – specifically that of the Dutch and the Japanese. While the Dutch had strong connections to Ayutthaya due to the centrality of its trading port, the Japanese influence in the kingdom sat in the realm of the military, with King Ekathosrot (1605-1610) employing Japanese soldiers and ronin as part of his personal bodyguard. The Dutch and Japanese also had connections to each other, being close trading partners for many decades.
While no two sources are exactly in agreement, not one denies the activity and importance of foreigners during the usurpation of King Songtham (1610-1628) and the placement of King Prasat Thong (1629-1655) on the throne of Ayutthaya. Especially with regards to the Japanese, under the instruction of Yamada Nagamasa, the 1628 succession struggle was far from a purely internal, domestic affair. What is interesting here is that, while Japanese soldiers were utilised specifically, it seems as though this brought no notable further prestige to shogunate influence in Ayutthaya. Further, while Dutch and Siamese sources make detailed mention of the accounts, the papers this article draws on do not discuss what is stated in contemporary Japanese sources.
In broad strokes, the events are thus: In 1628, the reigning King Songtham died of a sudden illness and left behind a confusing line of descendants poised to take the throne. Not only direct descendants, but power-hungry nobles as well, all vying for the vacant seat. Through a mix of his own cunning, established political power and close family ties, the late king’s cousin, Prasat Thong, with the aid of a minor Japanese army captained under Yamada Nagamasa, overcame all his opponents through methods of exile, execution and imprisonment and secured himself the coveted position on the throne of Ayutthaya.
While there is some disagreement, addition, and subtraction in the sources about the above narrative, the 1628 struggle follows a clearer timeline when compared to its 1688 counterpart. While the story follows closely the closing events of King Narai’s reign and the introduction of King Phetracha, never overlooked is the role of foreign religion and conversion attempts of Narai, by both the French and the Persian embassies. As Narai was personally interested in religion across multiple lines, foreign powers mistakenly took this as a sign that he could be easily puppetted to follow the central beliefs of a different nation and make him a more reliable political partner. Time and again, however, Narai dodged these conversion attempts. Upon finding his position as king under threat from the ambitions of Phetracha, Narai turned to the Dutch for aid, believing such long-standing allies would want to come against a successor with more isolationist views of foreign policy. The Dutch, however, are blatantly absent in the events, though their sources are still used in piecing together the story. The further fact that Narai would not convert to Catholicism also put strain on his relationship with the French. Eventually, backed by loyalists and pushing the pieces of political cunning, Phetracha found his way to the Ayutthaya throne and, upon the twilight of his house’s dynasty, become the beginning of the end of the kingdom of Ayutthaya.
Three Voices, One Story:
Being the important trade zone that it was, there are multiple foreign accounts of the succession struggles in Ayutthaya. Here three are examined, though it must be remembered that they are not the only three countries who were aware of or writing about palace drama in Siam. The three perspectives chosen are Dutch, French and Siamese. Dutch due to their extended trade presence in the region prior to either of the noted succession struggles taking place, French because of their deep and tangled involvement in the 1688 struggle, and Siamese for a perspective that can perhaps capture the nuances of the cultural landscape. Each perspective will be looked at in turn, evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses and speculation on the motivations behind each one.
The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya:
The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya are, as the name suggests, a compilation of the events and notable facts of court events during the existence of the Ayutthaya kingdom. The original Chronicles were contemporary sources, but all that historians have to draw on now are copies preserved about two centuries after the events that they describe. The sources are still trusted and still hold merit, but the possibility of augmentation exists and must be taken to account. However, this fact alone cannot count out the Chronicles and the specific type of bias they hold.
As they are Siamese sources discussing the roles and reigns of Siamese kings, they hold both the benefit and the pitfall of being very close to their subject matter. On the one hand, the Chronicles allow us a glimpse into the nuance and cultural characteristics that could be misinterpreted by other sources (as we shall see with the French later), providing a richer and more sympathetic outlook to the events. On the other hand, the fact that they are documents pertaining to royalty and the kings of Ayutthaya were viewed as divine, the reign of the current king each area of the Chronicles was written under will undoubtedly influence not only the descriptions of the events of that monarch, but colour the actions of all monarchs prior, either favourably or unfavourably. While the copies must be trusted in order for the stories to survive, how much augmentation has taken place in the face of cultural influence must remain a consideration in the narrative.
Van Vliet and Dutch Trade Accounts:
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was established in 1602, leading to the Dutch setting up port in Ayutthaya six years later. Contemporary Dutch sources cover both the 1628 and 1688 succession struggles and, even though Dutch nationals were not directly involved in the 1688 events, they would have known at the time that the outcome was to affect their trade influence well into the future.
The 1628 report is well documented by Jeremias Van Vliet, an historian and agent of the VOC. This combined situation of his occupation makes his documents deeply important to read alongside the Chronicles, as each text can mutually reinforce one another, especially when their details concur. Especially in terms of the 1628 succession struggle, Van Vliet’s account includes far more details and is written in more colourful language than the Chronicles are. Taking on the assumption that these details are as true as Van Vliet claims, it is very possible that he is privy to more detail due to his influence in the VOC and his communications with other traders, Dutch or otherwise. While the authors of the Chronicles kept themselves fixed on the narrow sights of court dealings, Van Vliet was not so confined, and thus had the ability to combine multiple streams of information in to one report. The added emotion may also come from a less scrutionous eye as the one that must have fallen on the text-based preservation of men seen as tantamount to gods.
Dutch reports also corroborate the Chronicles in relation to the succession events of 1688, even without their direct involvement. Read with both the Chronicles and the numerous French memoirs produced of the time, they can give an historian connecting threads between the sources, as, while there are similarities, again, nothing is reproduced with word-for-word accuracy. The backdrop upon which Dutch sources were written at this time is also important to note. King Narai, for all his interest and involvement with foreigners, had given the Dutch several trade concessions. This may have been in part why he reached out to them for aid during the succession struggle. However, in 1685, that is, three years before the struggle, the VOC had to close its factory in Ayutthaya. Limiting the trade ability the Dutch now had in the kingdom likely lead to their reluctance to help Narai as much as the trade concession talks made him think that they would be quick to side with him. Thus, while the Dutch sources can give us more threads to the web of events, their presence was far more limited than it was in 1628 and their information should be treated accordingly.
French Memoirs: The Contemporary Crusade
There are limited discussions of French sources for the 1628 succession struggle, with most accounts there being written by the Dutch and Portuguese and seeing heavy involvement from Japanese military personnel. Thus instead of speculation around the earlier struggle, the time is better spent outlining French motivations in 1688.
In the 1680s, the French court saw King Narai’s openness to religion as an easy way in to secure his conversion to Catholicism and connect his loyalty to the crown, providing the French with a stable East Asian port to expand both their trade networks and their international zone of influence. Accordingly, with the amount of ambassadors sent to and from Ayutthaya, many personal accounts in the form of memoirs survive and can be used as first-hand sources. Meant for private use, we can assume that these memoirs were likely not overtly coded to hide concerning information from the French king, however, individual exaggeration and personal feelings must certainly colour these accounts. That, in the right light, can be an increased benefit to the sources – much like the emotion in Van Vliet’s records – as not only are the events showcased, but how specific persons felt about such events is shown, too. For example, the concerns that the French had in the royal dissent of 1688 mirror their concerns about another parallel struggle: the Glorious Revolution taking place in England. At home and on the other side of the world, that year would be an unstable one for the future of French foreign relations.
What does come across in the French sources that can raise questions as to part of their reliability is the superimposition of French culture on to Siamese dealings. French sources tended to, in the writer’s opinion, mistakenly correlate Ayutthaya’s court and palace structures with the French ancien regime, at times causing confusion and conflation with what role each position in diplomacy was meant to provide.
Further, because one of the goals at the forefront of the French mission was Catholic conversion, the treatment of Catholics and the sparing of Jesuits after the 1688 struggle could only be treated as political in the eyes of the French. In such a deeply religious country, this affected the statements of the sources, and may have made the people and nobility of Ayutthaya appear far more emotionally-driven and passionate in their activities than what may be considered in the Chronicles. French sources see such treatment as a personal affront to their religion and their ‘Frenchness’, whereas the new King Phetracha may have only seen his actions as further security of his place on the throne.
Conclusion – Everything Read Together:
No source is complete on its own, and the canvas of history suffers when we prioritise certain viewpoints or look to actions in a vacuum. Only three geographic situations are braided together in this article, but each one is undoubtedly affected by the other writings not touched on here. The aim here has been to show why each source is needed and why a richer history is a more fulfilling history. Blind-spots in prior sources can also illuminate us to the blind-spots in our contemporary sources, in the curation of current affairs and biases of who decides what is allowed to become history and how.
Sources:
- Edward Michael Cavins, “Chapter 5: Royal Succession Conflict of 1628-1629” in The Role of Foreigners in the Succession Struggles in Seventeenth Century Ayutthaya, (2020), 51-82.
- Edward Michael Cavins, “Chapter 6: Royal Succession Conflict of 1688” in The Role of Foreigners in the Succession Struggles in Seventeenth Century Ayutthaya, (2020), 83-122.
- Vu Duc Liem, “Japanese Military Involvement in Ayutthaya, 1600-1630” in thesis for Southeast Asian Studies Program, Chulalongkorn University, (n.d.), 1-22.
- Alan Strathern, “Thailand’s First Revolution? The Ayutthaya Rebellion of 1688 and Global Patterns of Ruler Conversion to Monotheism” in Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, No. 258 (2017), 2-20.
About the Author:
Jenna has always been interested in the stories of persons and civilisations of the past. She graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor’s in Anthropology, Politics and Law, which allowed her to follow historical interests in a cross- disciplinary manner. She aims to continue studying politics, focusing on alternative governance structures in the global south.
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