Siam in 1688/Notes
N o t e s .
1.According to the Phongsavadan King Narayana had on his accession three brothers, Phra Indraraja, Phra Traibhuvanarthadityawongse and Prince Tong.
Phra Indraraja and Phra Traibhuvanart were executed for conspiracy at the commencement of the reign. Prince Tong is not mentioned further in the annals.
2.Hehad one son Chao Fa Abhaidos, who was to succeed to the throne.
At the time of the death of King Narayana he was summoned to Lopburi; obeying this summons he arrived soon after the death of the King. He was then arrested by order of Hluang Sarasakdi, who held the position of Maha-uparaj, and was killed with sandalwood clubs at the temple of Wat Sak.
3.Phaulkon is described in the annals as a French merchant, who came with his ship to Ayuddhya. He gained the favour of the King first by teaching the getting out of the dock of a ship. By the reports he made about France, it is said that he induced the King to send an Embassy to France.
All episodes concerning him as related in the Phongsavadan must be considered in the light of fables. Phongsavadan agrees however with foreign writers in as much as they make him responsible for the fortifications of Dhanaburi (Bangkok) and Phitsnulok. He also The advised about buildings which were erected at Lophburi. It is related that he surrounded the house which he built with brick walls and this was taken as a proof that he aspired to the Crown. He was held in his office by the King in spite of the opposition of the Chief Nobles.
About his death several versions exist. The Phongsavadan record that before the death of the King, he was summond to the Palace by Phra Phetraja through his friend Phya Surasongkhram. Much against his will he entered his sedan chair. When he arrived at the Palace gates he was assaulted and killed with clubs by the Palace guards under Hluang Sarasakdi.
In the second version given in the "Kham Hai Kan Khun Hluang Ha Vat" the evidence of the King of Siam otherwise known as Somdet Phra Paramarajadhiraj the 4th (1758) before the King of Burma (Alongpra), a work which is in its present form does not deserve much credence, it is related that Chao Phya Vijayen made a secret passage from his house leading to the Royal Palace, in which he had inserted gunpowder with a view to blow up the palace. This became known to Chao Phya Rajawangsan and Phya Sien Kham, who informed the King of it. Phya Sien Kham was ordered to summon Chao Phya Viyayen to the palace. Phya Sien Kham, who was of Malay descent, entered the house of Chao Phya Vijayen armed with a sword and invited him to a conversation and summoned him to the palace by order of the King. As he would not obey the summons he drew his sword and killed Chao Phya Vijayen on the spot.
Cpr. Bowring: Siam Vol. 11. 346.
In the full and true Relation of the great and wonderful Revolution, that happened in the Kingdom of Siam it is said that (Opra Petracha) "summoned Monsieur Constance and severely reproached him, charging him with treachery and perfidiousness against the King and Government of Siam and then caused him to be put to the ordinary and extraordinary torture, to force him to discover and declare who were his accomplices in the management of the intrigue for making the King a Christian and subjecting the Kingdom to the French Power, and when he had continued him several hours in the torture, he ordered the King's adopted Son to be brought to the palace and caused his head to be cut off immediately and a string to be run through it, and then to be hung about Monsieur Constance his neck in the manner of European cravate.
"This tragedy was acted on the 28th of May, the following 29th and 30th, Monsieur Constance was again applied to the torture in the cruellest manner that could be devised having the young prince's head always hanging his breast night and day. Thus they continued to torment him till the 4th of June till he expired under the violence of the torture."
In the history of Constance by Le Père d' Orleans it is said that he was executed on the 5th June, 1688 at the Thlee Poussonne.
With the exception of Faulcon none of the French who took part in the Revolution are mentioned in the Phongsavadan, naturally so as the Phongsavadan is what its name Vararája Vaṁsávatára implies chronicles of the Royal Race.
Reference to the Frenchmen implicated can be found in Lanier, Etude Historique sur les Relations de la France et du Royaume de Siam de 1662–1703 (Extrait des Memoirés de la Société des Sciences Morales et des Arts de Seine et Oise, tome XIII, Année 1883: further in John Anderson, M. D., English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (Trübner's Oriental Series, London 1890).
4.The daughter of King Narayana held the title of Krom Hluang Yodhadeb. She was raised on the accession of Phra Phetraja to the rank of Queen to the left.
Phra Pié (Piya) was the son of Khun Traisiddhi Sak, an inhabitant of Ban Këng. He was brought up in the Royal Palace in the same way as a Royal Prince. He was of a dwarfish appearance, and had the nick name of dwarf. was in constant attendance on the King during the last illness. He He was killed by being pushed down from the palace wall by order of Hluang Sarasakdi by one Khun Phitak Raksa, a Palace Guard.
5.Opra Petracha (i.e. Phra Phetraja) (Debraja). He was at the head of the Elephant Department, a resident of Ban Phlu Hluang in the district of Suphanburi. He was very skilled and was entirely in the confidence of the King, whom he accompanied on all his warlike expeditions and during the illness of the King was appointed Regent.
His son Nai Dúa (Hluang Sarasakdi): The annals relate that he was the son of King Narayana with a Laosian captive, daughter of the Prince of Chiengmai. His mother was given in marriage to Phra Phetraja. Many stories of his valour and cleverness are related of him in the annals, also that the King recognised him as his son. Both were enemies of Phaulkon. He was during the illness of the King appointed Maha-Uparaj.
6.Thlée Pousonne = Thale Chubson, a lake in the neighbourhood of Lophburi, with pleasure house.
Louvo = Lavo = Lophburi. (See Giblin: Lophburi past and present; vol. v. iii).
7.Ambassadors in France. The chief Ambassador sent was Nai Pān, who after his return from France, on the decease of his elder brother Lek, was made Minister for foreign affairs. (Phya Kosa). In the reign of Phra Phetraja he was, according to Kaempfer, Minister for foreign affairs and High Chancellor. About the Embassy to France Bowring, vol. ii. 445, may be compared. King Mongkut, writing to Sir John Bowring, asks him to procure a book relating to the visit of the Siamese Embassy to France, in return of the French one to Siam, of which it is said one of our ancestors has been head.
"There is a statement written here of that Embassy on its return from France. All these statements an unsatisfactory, difficult to believe and much exaggerated. They are opposed to geographical knowledge, and it would appear that at that time no one could have thought that any Siamese would have seen France again."
For the French account of the Siamese Embassy see this Journal, ii. 63.
8.A great deal of romancing is connected with the story of the wife of Faulcon. She is of course not mentioned in the Phongsavadan. Turpin, quoting from Tachard and Père d'Orléans, makes her a somewhat melodramatic heroine. Père d'Orléans describes her as Japanese, "celebrated by the nobility of her family and still more by the pure blood of the martyrs from which she had the honour to be descended, and whose virtues she knew so well to imitate." Deslandes, quoted by Lanier, gives her name as Doña Guyomar de Piña, of Portuguese origin. That she later on was employed in the King's kitchen under Phra Phetraja we have no reason to doubt.
Kaempfer gives a tale differing somewhat from that of the French writers just quoted. He says, recording the death of Faulcon, "He was first carried to his home which he found rifled, his wife lay prisoner in the stable who far from taking leave of him spit in his face and would not so much as suffer him to kiss his only remaining son of four years of age, another son being lately dead and still unburied."
