Page 24 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

A SHORT HISTORY OF PATANI 15

of Patani and divide the realm of Patani between them.61 A somewhat
different version of the story was given in a written version sent through
Admiral Verhoeven the same year to Holland, according to which the
late sultan of Johore (cAli Jalla cAbdul-Jalil Syah, 1580—97) had
married his second son to the daughter of the king of Patani at the
latter’s request; and the prince’s youngest brother had accompanied him
to live in Patani. The youngest brother misconducted himself with the
wife of his elder brother, and the offended husband had both his younger
brother and his wife killed for their adultery. Thereupon, “the king of
Patani” in his turn had the elder brother killed.62 Whatever the details
— and the accounts are obscure, when not downright contradictory —
the significance of this European evidence is to depict a relationship
which was close, and in which Johore and Pahang appear to have been
at some disadvantage, for Johore repeatedly was seeking Dutch aid
against Patani, while Patani appears to have needed none. In addition,
Patani was sufficiently powerful to be able to blockade the trade of
Pahang in 1613, forcing Sultan cAbdul-Ghafur to visit Patani with his
wife, Raja Ungu of Patani;63 and when he died the following year,
Raja Ungu returned to live in Patani. In addition, by the time of Floris’s
visit to Patani in 1612—13, the daughter of the third of Patani’s royal
sisters was married to another prince of Johore, the Raja of Siak.64
Despite, or perhaps because of, such close connections, Patani’s relations
with Johore were far from peaceful, and they certainly were intensive
over a period extending from the turn of the century to the 1640’s and
beyond.
By the reign of Raja Biru (1616—23), Patani’s position seems to have
come to a delicate balance between Thai and Johore influence. Raja
Biru appears to have been more friendly with the Thai than her pre­
decessor had been. (Alternatively, it is possible and even likely that Siam
again was becoming more active on the Malay Peninsula than it had
been during the period of warfare and instability that had preceded the
reign of King Song Tham (1610—28).) The HP tells us that the “junior
aide-de-camp (bentara kiri)” was given the Thai title khun (a rank of
nobility) ;65 and a Thai officer, Qkphaya Deca, who may have been the
eldest son of the ruler of Nakhqn Si Thammarat,66 asked for and
01 Begin ende Voortgangh, Verhoeven, pp. 43—44.
62 Begin ende Voortgangh, Verhoeven, pp. 205—6.
03 Moreland, 1934, pp. 72—73.
04 Moreland, 1934, p. 63.
05 HP text, p. 50.
00 Terpstra, 1938, p. 105. Cf. Wyatt, 1967, p. 30, n. 61.