Mongkut

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Mongkut bigraphy, stories - Monarchs

Mongkut : biography

18 October 1804 – 1 October 1868

Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramenthra Maha Mongkut Phra Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua (), or Rama IV, known in foreign countries as King Mongkut (18 October 18041 October 1868), was the fourth monarch of Siam (Thailand) under the House of Chakri, ruling from 1851–1868. He was one of the most revered monarchs of the country.

Outside of Thailand, he is best known as the King in the 1951 play and 1956 film The King and I, based on the 1946 film Anna and the King of Siamin turn based on the 1944 novel about Anna Leonowens’ years at his court, from 1862 to 1867.’King’s Ears Won’t Hear Songs From "King and I"’, Washington Post (28 June 1960), pg. C1.Marguerite Higgins, ‘Siam King Found Shy And Welfare-Minded’, Washington Post (30 August 1951), pg. B11.Lawrence Meyer, ‘Court And "The King"’, Washington Post (21 November 1972), pg. B2.Landon v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 384 F. Supp. 450 (S.D.N.Y. 1974), in Donald E. Biederman, Edward P. Pierson, Martin E. Silfen, Janna Glasser, Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries, 5th edition (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2006), pp. 349–356., Asian Economic News (3 January 2000). Accessed 29 August 2008.

During his reign, the pressure of Western expansionism was felt for the first time in Siam. Mongkut embraced Western innovations and initiated the modernization of Siam, both in technology and culture—earning him the nickname "The Father of Science and Technology" in Siam.

Mongkut was also known for his appointing his brother, Prince Chutamani, as a vice-king. Prince Chutamani was crowned in 1851 as King Pinklao. Mongkut himself assured the country that Pinklao should be respected with equal honor to himself. Mongkut’s reign was also the time when the power of the House of Bunnag reached its zenith and became the most powerful noble family of Siam.

Monastic life and Thammayut sect

In 1824, Mongkut became a Buddhist monk (ordination name Vajirayan; Pali Vajirañāṇo), following a Siamese tradition that men aged 20 should become monks for a time. The same year, his father died. By tradition, Mongkut should have been crowned the next king, but the nobility instead chose the influential Prince Jessadabodindra, who was a son of a royal concubine rather than a queen. Perceiving the throne was irredeemable and to avoid political intrigues, Mongkut retained his monastic status.

In 1854, John Bowring, the Governor of Hong Kong in the name of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, came to Siam to negotiate a treaty. For the first time Siam had to deal seriously with international laws. Prayurawongse negotiated on the behalf of the Siamese. The result was the Bowring Treaty, which was regarded as an unequal treaty imposed by the British Empire on Siam. The main principle of the treaty was to abolish the Royal Storage (พระคลังสินค้า), which since Ayutthaya’s times held the monopoly on foreign trade. The Royal Storage had been the source of Ayutthaya’s prosperity as it collected immense taxation on foreign traders, including the taxation according to the width of the galleon and the tithe. Western products had to go through a series of tax barriers to reach Siamese people.

The Europeans had been attempting to undo this monopoly for a long time but no serious measures had been taken. For Siamese people, trading with foreigners subjected them to severe punishment. The taxation was partially reduced in the Burney Treaty. However, in the world of liberalism of the nineteenth century, such unequal and government-interfered trade was disappearing.

The abolition of such trade barriers replaced Siamese commerce with free trade. Import taxation was reduced to 3% and could only be collected once. This, of course, was a blow on the national revenue. However, this led to dramatic growth of commercial sectors as common people gained access to foreign trade. Never before in Siam could agricultural products be for sale and exports rather than subsistence farming (Before Bowring, those who traded rice with foreigners would be executed for treason). People rushed to acquire vast, previously empty fields to grow rice and the competition eventually resulted in the lands ending up in the hands of nobility.