Period Two

Ayuthaya Kingdom

From Borommaratcha IV to Worawongsa

King Ramathibodi II died in 1529 AD after a long reign of 38 years. The following kings should have a rather short lived period of time.

As first, the son of Ramathibodi II, Prince Atityawon ascended the throne as king Borommaratcha IV but he died after only four years of smallpox and his only four year old son Prince Ratsadatiratkumar succeeded him as King Ratsada. But, the infant king shares the faith of nearly all of the underaged throne successors and is killed by a family member. So, Prince Prajai who was a half-brother of King Bormmaratcha IV ascends the throne as King Chairacha. His reign is of a little bit longer duration of twelve years until 1546 AD.

King Chairacha's reign was pretty unsuccessful and eventually catastrophic for Siam. As he intervened in the affairs of Chiang Mai, he caused a war with Burma and as that was still not enough his troops destroyed the city of Lamphun on their retreat. This again resulted in the hatred of the Lanna who switched sides to the Burmese where they would mainly remain in the following battles over the next centuries. King Chairacha dies after his arrival in Ayuthaya on controversial reasons, one of them that his wife had poisoned him.

The successor of King Chairacha was his oldest, but still underaged son Kaeofa who became King Yotfa and ruled together with his mother Queen Si Sudachan. As previously said the underaged kings were most times not very successful and Yotfa was not an exception. After only two years of his reign he is killed by the lover of his mother after he had himself unsuccessfully tried to get rid of him. The following turbulences caused that the younger brother of King Yotfa should have become king but his mother and her lover decided to depose him as well. So, the lover of their mother proclaimed himself King Worawongsa in 1548 AD. This was not appreciated at all and so as a result of a palace revolt, King Worawongsa and Queen Si Sudachan got killed by their own servants.

Now, the most interesting part of all was probably that this could be called the first coup d'etat in Siam/Thailand. As the leader of the palace revolt, Khun Pirentoratep showed a lot of skills he could be called the father of the Thai coup plotters which has been nearly a national sign of the country until present days.