Page 110 - A History of Siam

CHAPTER VIII

REIGN OF KING KEO USURPATION OF K*UN WORAWONGSA,
FA,
AND REIGNS OF KING MAHA CHAKRAP'AT AND KING MAHIN
KING P'RAJAI appears to have possessed no wife ranking
as Queen. The Princess whom Pinto accuses of poisoning
him held the title of T'ao Sri Suda Chan, a reserved
style
the Law of Sakdi Na l for one of the four senior non-
by
Royal Consorts of a King. By this lady King P'rajai
had two Prince Keo born about and
sons, Fa, 1535,
Prince Sri Sin, born about 1541.
It is not clear what if were made
arrangements, any,
as to a It would have
by King P'rajai appointing Regent.
been most unusual to nominate a female for that
position,
and had a Prince
King P'rajai younger half-brother,
T'ien who would have been the most natural
Raja,
to However this we
person appoint. may be, find, not
after the accession of the Keo
long young King Fa, that
the conduct of affairs was in the hands of his mother,
and that Prince T'ien had retired to the shelter of a
8
monastery.
1
See p. 85.
1
Called in some histories Yot Fa.
This period of Siamese history is obscure, and the various accounts differ
from one another and are not always consistent in themselves. Pinto was a
contemporary observer, but his narrative is, unfortunately, filled with demon-
strably incorrect statements. For instance, he asserts that Prince T'ien (King
Maha Chakrap'at) had, at the time of his accession (1549), been a Buddhist
priest for over thirty years. We know, however, that Pnnce T'ien was at that
time about forty-two years old, and had several more or less grown-up children.
Pinto also states that Princess Sri Suda Chan was pregnant when King P'rajai
died. If this was so, it is difficult to understand how she could have become
Regent.
The account here given appears to the author to be the most probable one.
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