Bangkok’s Bunnag Lineage from Feudalism to Constitutionalism Unraveling a Genealogical Gordian Knot
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Dec 1, 2020
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Long before the royal edict of 1913 prescribing Thai surnames, generations of Bunnag notables, not yet carrying that cognomen, played a commanding role in Thai political, economic, and social affairs. From the start of the Bangkok era in 1782 to the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 the Bunnag nobility passed through more than five generations, rising to unprecedented prominence and then waning under an upsurge of royal power followed by constitutional leveling. This article reviews that generational sequence through a résumé of the Bunnag family’s complex genealogy, a veritable Gordian Knot of family ties set in a fast-changing society. In the interests of simplicity, it focuses on the most eminent family members, their careers and filial, fraternal, and factional relations, accompanied by passing reference to the history of their Khlong San stronghold, as an approach to deciphering the place of the Bunnag lineage in Thai political and social affairs over the course of the Bangkok era. In the process, an opportunity is afforded to review some of the institutional foundations of Thai elite culture under the ancien régime and probe, from the Bunnag perspective, some of the political dynamics associated with the kingdom’s ongoing transformation from feudalism to monarchial absolutism to constitutionalism.
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Van Roy, E. (2020). Bangkok’s Bunnag Lineage from Feudalism to Constitutionalism: Unraveling a Genealogical Gordian Knot. The Journal of the Siam Society, 108(2), 17–46. Retrieved from https://so06.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/pub_jss/article/view/246580
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Decades ago, David K. Wyatt recognized that fact in his classic paper entitled "Family Politics in Nineteenth-Century Thailand," Journal of Southeast Asian History, 1968, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 208-228, which this article revisits.
All basic Bunnag family genealogical and biographical data, unless otherwise noted, are derived from Doeanchai Khoman, et al., eds., Sakun bunnak [The Bunnag Lineage], Bangkok: Thai Wathana Phanit, 1999; and Doeanchai Khoman, et al., eds., Saraek sakun bunnak [The Bunnak Family Tree], Bangkok: Thai Wathana Phanit, 1999.
The only other somdet chaophraya during the reign of King Taksin (1767-1782) was Somdet Chaophraya Maha Kasatsoek (Thongduang), who later rose to become King Rama I.
No comprehensive record survives of the contribution of Bunnag daughters to the Front Palace (the viceroy’s seat), nor does this article detail the contributions of Bunnag daughters to other princes’ households (contributing a bevy of Bunnag-related royal grandsons [mom chao]), or the scores of intermarriages between the Bunnags and other noble lineages (resulting in a wide dispersion of nobles carrying maternal Bunnag pedigrees).
Social status within the Bunnag family aligned closely with the Thai feudal nobility’s ranking system, which derived from a military hierarchy of ancient derivation. At the risk of oversimplification and some distortion, that hierarchy’s senior military/civil ranks can be compared, for heuristic purposes, with their approximate Western military equivalents as follows:
Thai/Western military/civil staff hierarchyComparative Thai/Western military forces hierarchy
Chaophraya – general/minister Kong thap – division (10,000+ troops)
Phraya – brigadier general/department directorKong – brigade (3,000-5,000 troops)
Phra – colonel/division chiefSmall kong – regiment or battalion (1,000 troops)
Luang – major-captain/section managerMu – company (50-100 troops)
Khun – lieutenant/bureau headSmall mu – platoon (25-50 troops)
Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead, The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism, London: Routledge Curzon, 2004, p. 32, citing Thai National Library, Fifth Reign, NL, RS 243/15. It should be further noted that ministerial appointments carried broad jurisdiction, often stretching far beyond such nominal functional titles (used for convenience in translation) as “war” and “trade.”
Robert B. Jones, Thai Titles and Ranks: Including a Translation of Traditions of Royal Lineage in Siam by King Chulalongkorn, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Department of Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Program, Data Paper Number 81, 1971.
“Feudalism” is here referred to in the objective meaning of the Annales school (e.g. Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, London: Routledge, 2014 [1940]) rather than in the Marxist sense popularized by the Thai left (Craig J. Reynolds, Thai Radical Discourse: The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, 1987). As I have discussed elsewhere (Edward Van Roy, Siamese Melting Pot: Ethnic Minorities in the Making of Bangkok, Singapore: ISEAS, 2017, pp. 239-244), the thesis that modern Thailand’s origins lie in a “feudal” past has been contested, though a number of sweeping Thai histories approaching Siam’s modern political evolution from different perspectives travel parallel paths toward its implicit confirmation. As an additional note often overlooked, Thai feudalism differed significantly from its European variant in stressing control of manpower over control of land.
David K. Wyatt, The Politics of Reform in Thailand: Education in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969, p. 45.
Royal award of senior rank and title was accompanied, as a general rule, by the grant of a landed estate. A quaint example is provided by Anna Leonowens upon her ennoblement by King Mongkut for her tutoring of the royal children. The document issued for that purpose recognized her as “Chow Khuoon Crue Yai” along with a bequest of land and “the number and description of the roods of land pertaining to it . . . . in the district of Lophaburee and Phra Batt” (Anna Harriette Leonowens, The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok, Bangkok: Chalermnit, 1970 [1870], p. 123). Similar but much more valuably situated land endowments accompanied the appointment of Bunnag nobles to high office, though the documentation is lacking. Thus, the Bunnags’ Khlong San stronghold came into being.
Although identical in spoken English, the personal name “Bunnak” and the surname “Bunnag” are here distinguished in written English to clarify identification. The lineage name “Bunnag,” with that English spelling included in the original document of award, was conferred by royal favor in 1913 following the Sixth-Reign law mandating Thai surnames (Thep Sunthonsarathun, ed., Nam sakun phra rachathan 6,532 sakun [Royally Awarded Surnames, 6,532 Lineages], Thonburi: Duangkaew, 1995, pp. 12-13, 24). The conspicuous anachronism of referring to the 19th-century “Bunnag brothers” is nevertheless used in this article as a matter of convenience.
For simplicity, all references to Bunnag family members, after their initial identification by rank and title, refer to them by their personal names. In taking this unpretentious approach, no disrespect is intended. To accommodate Western norms of pronunciation, all names and titles (with some exceptions based on popular usage) are transliterated along phonetic lines.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong, Chotmaihet prathanuang sakun bunnag [Records of the Forebears of the Bunnag Lineage]. Bangkok: Phrachan Printing, 1970 (cited in Julisphong Chularatana, Khunnang krom tha khwa . . . [Nobles of the Western Trade Department, . . .], Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Fine Arts, 2007, pp. 248-249).
With Bunnak’s conversion, the Bunnag branch of the Sheik Ahmad lineage integrated readily into the Thai Buddhist ruling elite at the cost of distancing itself from its ancestral Shia Muslim community. Nevertheless, the ancient Bunnag family connection continues to be esteemed by both the Bunnags and the surviving generations of that Shia lineage, who carried the noble rank and title of Phraya Chula Rachamontri into the 20th century and retain that surname today (Julisphong Chularatana, “The Shi’ite Muslims in Thailand from [the] Ayutthaya Period to the Present,” Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 2008, special issue no.16, pp. 37-58).
Wyatt, "Family Politics," p. 220; Sarasin Viraphol, Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652-1853, Cambridge, MA: Council of East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977, p. 181.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong (Narimon Thirawat and Nithi Eoseewong, eds.), Phra rachaphongsawadan krung ratanakosin rachakan thi 2, [The Royal Chronicles of Krung Ratanakosin, the Second Reign], Bangkok: Amarin, 2005 [c.1870], p. 20.
Ibid., p. 70.
In the absence of adequate documentary evidence on that portentous event in the royal archives, which did not register internal ministerial proceedings, emphasis has been placed here on the logic of the circumstances, interpreting the opaque facts of chronology and geography and splicing the gaps.
Sarasin, Tribute and Profit, pp. 140-159, 181-185.
Under Siam’s feudal administration, ministers and lesser functionaries regularly diverted a significant portion of government revenues into their own coffers. That traditional practice was aggravated under the lax control exerted by Rama II. With his centralization of the Trade Ministry’s key operations under the Bunnag brothers’ management along the Khlong San waterfront, Prince Chesada, as the government’s overseer-in-chief and well-known for his economic acumen, sought to remedy the significant fiscal shortfalls that had been troubling the Second Reign (Ibid.).
Like many other long Thai appellations, this title (actually Phraya Si Phiphat Ratana Kosa) is here abbreviated for convenience.
The close relations between the king and the brothers in situations requiring difficult decisions under conditions of personal discretion are well portrayed in Syril Skinner (trans.) and Justin Corfield (ed.), Rama III and the Siamese Expedition to Kedah in 1839: The Dispatches of Luang Udomsombat, Clayton, Vic, Australia: Monash University, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. Luang Udom Sombat was himself a subordinate of That.
Hong Lysa, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century: Evolution of the Economy and Society, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984, p. 53.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong, Phra racha phongsawadan krung ratanakosin rachakan thi 3 [The Royal Chronicles of Ratanakosin, the Third Reign], Bangkok: Royal Thai Government, Department of Fine Arts, 1934 [c. 1870], p. 43.
William L. Bradley, “The Accession of King Mongkut,” Journal of the Siam Society, 1969, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 149-162.
Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 38-74 (on the royal monopoly trade), 75-110 (on the tax-farming system).
The old saying that “ten merchants are not equal to the patronage of one nobleman” (Sarasin, Tribute and Profit, p. 218, citing Prince Damrong Rachanuphap) may well have been aimed specifically at the lucrative patron-client relationships formed between That and his many Chinese business associates.
Sir John Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1969 [1857], vol. 2, p. 227.
Ibid., pp. 289-290.
Mead, Rise and Decline, pp. 32-33.
His daughter Samli was accepted as a consort of King Mongkut and bore five daughters, one of whom, Princess Sukhuman Marasi, became a queen of her half-brother, King Chulalongkorn, and bore Prince Boriphat Sukhumphan, founder of the Boriphat lineage.
A near facsimile of primogeniture appears in the superior ranks, titles, functions, and privileged inheritance portions that were regularly allotted to eldest sons and sons of senior wives in elite society. Like many other Thai elite social institutions, that convention emulated the timeworn Chinese patriarchal system, in contrast to the bilateral kinship practices and looser seniority norms of the lesser social orders. The many Thai folk tales lauding loving fraternal relations – suggesting that such idealistic parables served as a necessary cautionary guide – are exemplified by the Ramayana account of Rama (“Phra Ram”) and his younger brother, Lakshman (“Phra Lak”) (Frederick B. Goss, “‘Anucha’: The Younger Brother in Ramakien and Thai Historical Narratives,” Rian Thai: International Journal of Thai Studies, 2008, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 26-51).
Thipakorawong, loc. cit.
Thipakorawong, Phra racha phongsawadan . . . rachakan thi 3, pp. 76-77; Kukrit Pramoj, Khrong kraduk nai tu [Skeletons in the Closet], Bangkok: Dok Ya, 2000 [1971], pp. 91-93. The execution of that ranking Bunnag family member appears to have been regretted by later kings, as suggested by the elevation of one of Sanit’s surviving daughters to a consort of Rama IV, another to a consort of Rama V, and a third in marriage to a royal family affiliate later promoted to chaophraya.
The villages were Toek Daeng (a Shia merchants’ settlement and its Kuwat il-Islam Mosque) and Ban Talat Hailam (a small Hainanese fishermen’s settlement and marketplace featuring Sanchao Po Soea).
As with other long Thai appellations, these temple names have been abbreviated in subsequent references for convenience.
Jane Bunnag, Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study of Urban Monastic Organization in Central Thailand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 51-85.
A congruent contrast is evident between another pair of Bunnag family temples, Wat Buppharam and Wat Anongkharam, built nearby, contemporaneously about a decade later under the principal sponsorships, respectively, of Than Phuying Chan, senior wife of Dit, and Than Phuying Nong, senior wife of That. Like Wat Prayurawong and Wat Phichaiyat, those two temples were distinguished from one another in their contrasting Thammayut and Mahanikai sectarian affiliations, though in the opposite direction (for reasons too arcane to dwell on here).
Over the years, several efforts at Thammayut-Mahanikai coexistence at Wat Phichaiyat proved unsuccessful. In 1942, however, during a period of heightened Mahanikai-Thammayut sectarian tensions and political agitation, the abbot of Wat Phichaiyat and his monastic entourage converted to the Mahanikai Order, and since then Wat Phichaiyat has been officially listed as Mahanikai.
On the parallel histories of the two temples, compare “Prawat wat prayurawongsawat worawihan” [History of Wat Prayurawongsawat Worawihan], in Phra Khru Phisan Sorawuni (Chakrawut), et al., eds., Prinyanuson chalong priantham 9 . . . . [Graduation Ceremony Celebrating the Attainment of the Ninth Level of Monastic Studies . . . .], Bangkok: Wat Mahathat Yuwarat Rangsit, 2015, pp. 45-60; and Prawat wat phichayatikaram worawihan [History of Wat Phichaiyatikaram Worawihan], in Phra Wisuthiyan Methi, et al., eds., Katanyu kata wethitakhun [Gratitude to an Elder], Nonthaburi: Akkhara Printing, 2020, pp. 18-38.
See Footnote 30.
See Footnote 70.
Yet another girls’ school was founded in circa1907 as the endowment of Than Phuying Phan, Chuang’s consort in his old age, on the site of her mansion along Khlong Ban Somdet. That school was later converted to a teachers’ training college, which survives today as the Ban Somdet Chaophraya Rachaphat University (Nantha Withawuthisak et al, 100 pi ban somdet chaophraya: Sathaban rachaphat ban somdet chaophraya [100 Years of Ban Somdet Chaophraya: Rachaphat Ban Somdet Chaophraya University], Bangkok: Amarin, 1996).
Although isolated cases of marriage took place between Phichaiyat women and Prayurawong men over the course of the first five generations, none appear to have occurred between Prayurawong women and Phichaiyat men, reflecting the family pecking order.
Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century, p. 112; cf. Ian G. Brown, The Creation of the Modern Ministry of Finance in Siam, 1885–1910, London: Macmillan, 1992, p. 14.
Mead, Rise and Decline, pp. 58-60; Chaiyan Rajchagool, The Rise and Fall of the Thai Absolute Monarchy, Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994, pp. 85-92.
“Sarup lamdap kan soep sakun trong khong nai det bunlong” [Summary of the genealogy of Mr. Det Bunlong], in Anuson nai ngan phra rachathan phloeng sop sasatrachan phiset det bunlong . . . [Commemoration of the Royally Sponsored Cremation of Professor Det Bunlong . . .], Bangkok: 2010, p. 46.
In a dramatic revelation of the Bunnag connection to this case, the investigatory committee uncovered a number of irregularities, including the fact that Nut “had taken liberties in distributing the state’s rice to his family and to his patron, Somdet Chaophraya [Si Suriyawong]” (Mead, Rise and Decline, p. 59, citing Thailand, National Archives, NA, R5 S 5/9 (K-B)).
Nigel J. Brailey, “The Origins of the Siamese Forward Movement in Western Laos, 1859-1892,” doctoral dissertation, University of London, 1968, p. 258, cited in Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 88 (brackets in the original).
Brown, Creation of the Modern Ministry, pp. 14-18, 21-22, 40 (fn. 3), 41 (fn.19). As with other knowledgeable studies on 19th-century Bunnag-Crown relations, Brown submerges the Bunnags’ inner social relationships and departmental directorships under the penumbra of its senior elder, the Minister of War, leaving the misleading impression that all Bunnag wealth was controlled by that one personage, thereby obscuring, among other things, the continuing economic independence of the Phichaiyat branch.
Chuang’s accomplishments in square-rigger construction at Chanthaburi and later steamer construction at the Khlong San and Yannawa shipyards led to him being known as "father of the Siamese navy" (F. Holm-Peterson, Windjammers Under the Old Elephant Flag: Notes About the Old Siamese Merchant Navy 1824-1900, Troense, Denmark: The Maritime Museum, 1979, p. 42, citing Samuel Smith, Siam Repository, 1873).
Chaophraya Thipakorawong (trans. by Chadin Flood), The Dynastic Chronicles, Bangkok Era, the Fourth Reign (B.E. 2394-2411, Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1965-1973 [c. 1870], vol. 3, pp. 555-558.
Bowring, Kingdom and People vol. 2, p. 282; also see p. 304.
Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, pp. 95-96.
To facilitate that assignment and to assist him in his other duties, he presented Chuang and Kham with a pair of well-appointed estates along the outer bank of the city moat, Khlong Ong Ang, within an easy carriage ride of the Grand Palace; they appear to have used those facilities for most of their tenure as offices rather than as primary residences (Nathawuti Sutthisongkhram, Somdet chaophraya borom maha si suriyawong, Bangkok: Sangsan Books, 2008 [1980], pp. 145-146).
That provincial extension of Bunnag family wealth-generating control did not go unnoticed by King Chulalongkorn. “The dislodging of the Bunnag nobility from its command of political power at the top went hand in hand with the dissolution of the localized structures of power which were the power base of the Bunnag nobility” (Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 90).
That maneuver contributed to the continuing tensions between the young king and the Bunnag family head, culminating in the 1873/74 Front Palace Incident – in effect, it is generally said, a failed coup attempt – and the abolition of the viceregal institution and dismantling of the Front Palace itself in 1886 shortly after the death of Prince Wichaichan.
Wyatt, "Family Politics," p. 224.
Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 56.
The head of that mission, Thuam’s elder brother Chum (Phraya Montri Suriyawong), died less than a decade later, prematurely ending a promising career with the Trade Ministry and opening unexpected opportunities for Thuam’s career advancement.
The government acquired that garden estate from his heirs for conversion to the Somdet Chaophraya Hospital, which remains at that location to this day.
Tej Bunnag, The Provincial Administration of Siam 1892-1915, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977.
While ordinarily viewed as no more than royal retreats and architectural adventures, the hilltop Phra Nakhon Khiri Palace (Phetchaburi, Fourth Reign), Phra Ram Rachaniwet Palace (Phetchaburi, late Fifth Reign), and Maroe Khathayawan Palace (Phetchaburi’s Cha-am township, Sixth Reign), as well as the Sanam Chan Palace (Nakhon Pathom, Sixth Reign), additionally served as politically purposeful, physically and financially imposed royal intrusions into the Bunnag provincial stronghold (Ross King and Sompong Amnuay-ngerntra “A Tale of Three Palaces: Heritage and Interpretation,” in Ross King, ed., Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand: Memory, Place and Power, Singapore: NUS Press, 2017, pp. 48-67).
The life of Thet’s daughters among King Chulalongkorn’s 153 consorts is examined in Leslie Woodhouse, “Concubines with Cameras: Royal Siamese Consorts Picturing Femininity and Ethnic Difference in Early 20th Century Siam,” Women’s Camera Work: Asia, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012. Available at http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.7977573.0002.202
In the French Foreign Office documents of the day, he is referred to as “phra Siphiphat Rajikosa Thipusi,” “superintendant des revenus de l’État” (Dominique Le Bas, “La venue de l’ambassade siamoise en France en 1861,” Aséanie, vol. 3, 1999, p. 96), a functional attribution considerably in excess of his actual mandate.
Iam and his Sampheng-born descendants Det (Phraya Phaibun Sombat) and Dan (Chaophraya Phichaiyat) provide a remarkable example of the inter-ethnic consequences of That’s patronage of Bangkok’s Taechiu business community.
His reduced standing in the nobility following his separation from government service and socially inappropriate Sampheng marriage and residency were probably major factors in his 1895 defeat in a court case contesting his ownership of a valuable Yannawa waterfront property (a former Front Palace shipyard) that he claimed had been bequeathed to him by the Fourth-Reign viceroy (Phra Pin Klao, otherwise known as the Second King) in recognition of his administrative services. Failing to produce documentary evidence, he was not supported in his claim by the king, nor was his word as a phraya accepted by the court as sufficient surety (Phanni Bualek and Aphinya Nonnat, “Wat phraya krai” [Wat Phraya Krai], Moeang Boran, 2013, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 55-56). The site’s subsequent reversion to the Crown provided a convenient opportunity for the Privy Purse soon thereafter to rent out the land on a long-term lease to the East Asiatic Company. The site survives today as the Asiatique riverfront shopping center and amusement park.
Two Prayurawong-line sons, Mek (Phraya Wongsa Phonphisut) and Nokyung (Phraya Aphai Songkhram), also held Front Palace office under the Fifth-Reign viceroy, but their livelihoods in the wake of the viceroy’s death and abolition of the viceregal institution were secured by their powerful Prayurawong family connections, and their lineages survived.
The French Foreign Office records of the time refer to him as “phra Navaï,” describe him as “Chef du conseil formé des fils du roi, des ministers et des grands du royaume” and as “le fils de minister de la Guerre également Premier ministre qui est le chef du parti opposé à la France,” and yet speak of him as an accomplished naval officer (Le Bas, “La venue de l’ambassade siamoise,” p. 96).
Both quotes are contained in Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, p. 218, citing Pensri Duke, Relations entre la France et la Thailande (Siam) au XIXe siècle d’après les archives des Affaires Étrangeres, Bangkok: Librairie Chalermnit, 1962, p. 51.
The case of Won’s eldest daughter Phae provides an instructive example of Bunnag-royal intermarriage. She entered the Grand Palace, as did many a nobleman’s daughter, at puberty for her “finishing school” education. There, in 1868, she bore a daughter by Prince Chulalongkorn (the future Rama V). She subsequently bore two further royal daughters, but no sons, which truncated her line, as the king’s daughters were held too senior in rank to wed anyone inferior to a king. As palace women, the widow and her spinster daughters lived out their years in secluded luxury. In the Sixth Reign, around age 60 and well after the death of all three daughters, she was promoted to the distinguished rank and title of Chaokhun Phra Prayurawong, possibly for no reason more important than her remembered kindnesses to Prince Wachirawut (later Rama VI) during his shy, quiet, unassuming childhood years. She was given leave to retire to her ancestral estate in the former Bunnag stronghold as patron of the Soeksa Nari School, which continues in operation there to this day.
In addition, two of Won’s other daughters produced royal lines. His daughter Mot became a Fifth Reign consort and bore Prince Aphakon Kiantiwong (founder of the Aphakon lineage) and Prince Suriyong Prayurawong (founder of the Suriyong lineage). His daughter Maen became a consort of King Chulalongkorn’s younger full-brother and bore three children all of whom were promoted to senior (phra ong chao) royal rank. One of them, titled Princess Chaloemkhet Mongkhon, married King Chulalongkorn’s son Prince Yukhon Khamphon (founder of the Yukhon lineage). The Bunnag lineage, through those and other of its daughters, thereby reinforced its place vis-à- vis the Chakri Dynasty.
Phraya Suriyanuwat, Naksethakit khon raek khong moeang thai [The First Economist of Thailand], Bangkok: Thai Watthana Phanit, 1980; Yuangrat Wedel and Paul Wedel, Radical Thought, Thai Mind: A History of Revolutionary Ideology in a Traditional Society, rev. ed., Seattle, WA: Kindle Store (Amazon.com), pp. 50-57.
It remains a moot point whether the return of that land grant to the Crown was a voluntary act or imposed under the royal right of eminent domain (Tomas Larsson, Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012, pp. 31-34, 52-57). Although a seemingly intractable conundrum, the broader ramifications of that issue extend to the expropriation of large swaths of the Bunnag stronghold for public purposes under the successive governments of the post-1932 constitutional monarchy.
Dan’s basic chronology is derived from “Prawat [chaophraya phichaiyat]” [Biography (of Chaophraya Phichaiyat)], in Damrong Rachanuphap, Thiaw Moeang Phama [Travels in Burma], Bangkok: printed for the royally sponsored cremation of Chaophraya Phichaiyat (Dan Bunnag), 1946, pp. (2)-(14).
Thai legal scholar (anonymous), personal communication, 2019.
Ibid.
Benjamin A. Batson, The End of the Absolute Monarchy in Siam. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 107.
As presiding officer of the National Assembly, Dan received the signed constitution from the enthroned king and then led a solemn procession to the royal plaza for a public viewing of the signed document. Phraya Manoprakon Nithithada (Kon Hutasingh), also a judge and serving as Chairman of the Committee of the People (de facto Prime Minister) had a few minutes earlier formally presented the document to the king for his signature. The densely symbolic drama of that event is evoked with graphic precision in Thanavi Chotipradit, “From 24th June to 10th December: The Political Life of the Ananta Samakom Throne Hall in 1932,” Na Jua [Gables], vol. 13, 2016, pp. 10-37.
As an additional, nongovernmental career, Dan served as a member of the board of the Siamese Red Cross from 1925 to 1939, presiding as its Secretary General from 1932.
Constitution of the Kingdom of Siam, 10 December 1932.
Announcement Regarding the Abolition of Ranks, 9 May 1942.
Family Law, Civil and Commercial Code, 1935, Article 1445.3, 27 May 1935.
That motif has been largely relegated to footnotes in the preceding pages in representation of the subordinate position assigned to women within Siam’s feudal society, but in referring to half the population it surely deserves more than footnote status in the Bunnag family’s history. Nevertheless, polygyny was already well on the wane among the ruling elite by the 1930s owing to Western cultural influence, the abandonment of concubinage by Rama VI and Rama VII, and the nobility’s slipping wealth and power.
Despite its social leveling and physical dispersal over the course of the 20th century, the Bunnag family has continued to celebrate its collective heritage and demonstrate its solidarity with periodic gatherings at Wat Prayurawong and Wat Phichaiyat, as well as at Ayutthaya’s tomb of Sheik Ahmad and at the statue of Somdet Chaophraya Borom Maha Si Suriyawong at his namesake Rachaphat University, among other sites of remembrance (Tej Bunnag, personal communication, 2020). Clearly, the factional divisions of a former era have long been resolved and largely forgotten.
Batson, End of the Absolute Monarchy, p. 248.
A last hurrah of the old nobility was heard in the Senate appointed in 1946. That legislative body included nine Bunnags -- Tan (Phraya Chaisurin), Anusonthi (Phraya Song Surarat), Phong (Phra Nithi Naiprasan), Sawat (Phraya Siharat Dechochai), Tin (Phraya Suphan Sombat), Tiam-surawong (Phraya Surawong Wiwat), Tao (Phraya Suriyanuwong Prawat), Krachang (Luang Suriyaphong Phisutthiphaet, and Tom (Phraya Aphiban Rachamaitri, who served as that Senate’s Vice President) – not to mention a number of other members affiliated with the Bunnags through mother or marriage. The dissolution of that Senate with the 1951 change in government marked the end of the old nobility.
“A legend is an attempt to explain the inexplicable; emerging as it does from a basis of truth, it is bound to end in the inexplicable” (Franz Kafka, “The Rescue Will Begin in Its Own Time,” The New Yorker, June 29, 2020, p. 53).
All basic Bunnag family genealogical and biographical data, unless otherwise noted, are derived from Doeanchai Khoman, et al., eds., Sakun bunnak [The Bunnag Lineage], Bangkok: Thai Wathana Phanit, 1999; and Doeanchai Khoman, et al., eds., Saraek sakun bunnak [The Bunnak Family Tree], Bangkok: Thai Wathana Phanit, 1999.
The only other somdet chaophraya during the reign of King Taksin (1767-1782) was Somdet Chaophraya Maha Kasatsoek (Thongduang), who later rose to become King Rama I.
No comprehensive record survives of the contribution of Bunnag daughters to the Front Palace (the viceroy’s seat), nor does this article detail the contributions of Bunnag daughters to other princes’ households (contributing a bevy of Bunnag-related royal grandsons [mom chao]), or the scores of intermarriages between the Bunnags and other noble lineages (resulting in a wide dispersion of nobles carrying maternal Bunnag pedigrees).
Social status within the Bunnag family aligned closely with the Thai feudal nobility’s ranking system, which derived from a military hierarchy of ancient derivation. At the risk of oversimplification and some distortion, that hierarchy’s senior military/civil ranks can be compared, for heuristic purposes, with their approximate Western military equivalents as follows:
Thai/Western military/civil staff hierarchyComparative Thai/Western military forces hierarchy
Chaophraya – general/minister Kong thap – division (10,000+ troops)
Phraya – brigadier general/department directorKong – brigade (3,000-5,000 troops)
Phra – colonel/division chiefSmall kong – regiment or battalion (1,000 troops)
Luang – major-captain/section managerMu – company (50-100 troops)
Khun – lieutenant/bureau headSmall mu – platoon (25-50 troops)
Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead, The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism, London: Routledge Curzon, 2004, p. 32, citing Thai National Library, Fifth Reign, NL, RS 243/15. It should be further noted that ministerial appointments carried broad jurisdiction, often stretching far beyond such nominal functional titles (used for convenience in translation) as “war” and “trade.”
Robert B. Jones, Thai Titles and Ranks: Including a Translation of Traditions of Royal Lineage in Siam by King Chulalongkorn, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Department of Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Program, Data Paper Number 81, 1971.
“Feudalism” is here referred to in the objective meaning of the Annales school (e.g. Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, London: Routledge, 2014 [1940]) rather than in the Marxist sense popularized by the Thai left (Craig J. Reynolds, Thai Radical Discourse: The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, 1987). As I have discussed elsewhere (Edward Van Roy, Siamese Melting Pot: Ethnic Minorities in the Making of Bangkok, Singapore: ISEAS, 2017, pp. 239-244), the thesis that modern Thailand’s origins lie in a “feudal” past has been contested, though a number of sweeping Thai histories approaching Siam’s modern political evolution from different perspectives travel parallel paths toward its implicit confirmation. As an additional note often overlooked, Thai feudalism differed significantly from its European variant in stressing control of manpower over control of land.
David K. Wyatt, The Politics of Reform in Thailand: Education in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969, p. 45.
Royal award of senior rank and title was accompanied, as a general rule, by the grant of a landed estate. A quaint example is provided by Anna Leonowens upon her ennoblement by King Mongkut for her tutoring of the royal children. The document issued for that purpose recognized her as “Chow Khuoon Crue Yai” along with a bequest of land and “the number and description of the roods of land pertaining to it . . . . in the district of Lophaburee and Phra Batt” (Anna Harriette Leonowens, The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok, Bangkok: Chalermnit, 1970 [1870], p. 123). Similar but much more valuably situated land endowments accompanied the appointment of Bunnag nobles to high office, though the documentation is lacking. Thus, the Bunnags’ Khlong San stronghold came into being.
Although identical in spoken English, the personal name “Bunnak” and the surname “Bunnag” are here distinguished in written English to clarify identification. The lineage name “Bunnag,” with that English spelling included in the original document of award, was conferred by royal favor in 1913 following the Sixth-Reign law mandating Thai surnames (Thep Sunthonsarathun, ed., Nam sakun phra rachathan 6,532 sakun [Royally Awarded Surnames, 6,532 Lineages], Thonburi: Duangkaew, 1995, pp. 12-13, 24). The conspicuous anachronism of referring to the 19th-century “Bunnag brothers” is nevertheless used in this article as a matter of convenience.
For simplicity, all references to Bunnag family members, after their initial identification by rank and title, refer to them by their personal names. In taking this unpretentious approach, no disrespect is intended. To accommodate Western norms of pronunciation, all names and titles (with some exceptions based on popular usage) are transliterated along phonetic lines.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong, Chotmaihet prathanuang sakun bunnag [Records of the Forebears of the Bunnag Lineage]. Bangkok: Phrachan Printing, 1970 (cited in Julisphong Chularatana, Khunnang krom tha khwa . . . [Nobles of the Western Trade Department, . . .], Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Fine Arts, 2007, pp. 248-249).
With Bunnak’s conversion, the Bunnag branch of the Sheik Ahmad lineage integrated readily into the Thai Buddhist ruling elite at the cost of distancing itself from its ancestral Shia Muslim community. Nevertheless, the ancient Bunnag family connection continues to be esteemed by both the Bunnags and the surviving generations of that Shia lineage, who carried the noble rank and title of Phraya Chula Rachamontri into the 20th century and retain that surname today (Julisphong Chularatana, “The Shi’ite Muslims in Thailand from [the] Ayutthaya Period to the Present,” Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 2008, special issue no.16, pp. 37-58).
Wyatt, "Family Politics," p. 220; Sarasin Viraphol, Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652-1853, Cambridge, MA: Council of East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977, p. 181.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong (Narimon Thirawat and Nithi Eoseewong, eds.), Phra rachaphongsawadan krung ratanakosin rachakan thi 2, [The Royal Chronicles of Krung Ratanakosin, the Second Reign], Bangkok: Amarin, 2005 [c.1870], p. 20.
Ibid., p. 70.
In the absence of adequate documentary evidence on that portentous event in the royal archives, which did not register internal ministerial proceedings, emphasis has been placed here on the logic of the circumstances, interpreting the opaque facts of chronology and geography and splicing the gaps.
Sarasin, Tribute and Profit, pp. 140-159, 181-185.
Under Siam’s feudal administration, ministers and lesser functionaries regularly diverted a significant portion of government revenues into their own coffers. That traditional practice was aggravated under the lax control exerted by Rama II. With his centralization of the Trade Ministry’s key operations under the Bunnag brothers’ management along the Khlong San waterfront, Prince Chesada, as the government’s overseer-in-chief and well-known for his economic acumen, sought to remedy the significant fiscal shortfalls that had been troubling the Second Reign (Ibid.).
Like many other long Thai appellations, this title (actually Phraya Si Phiphat Ratana Kosa) is here abbreviated for convenience.
The close relations between the king and the brothers in situations requiring difficult decisions under conditions of personal discretion are well portrayed in Syril Skinner (trans.) and Justin Corfield (ed.), Rama III and the Siamese Expedition to Kedah in 1839: The Dispatches of Luang Udomsombat, Clayton, Vic, Australia: Monash University, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. Luang Udom Sombat was himself a subordinate of That.
Hong Lysa, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century: Evolution of the Economy and Society, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984, p. 53.
Chaophraya Thipakorawong, Phra racha phongsawadan krung ratanakosin rachakan thi 3 [The Royal Chronicles of Ratanakosin, the Third Reign], Bangkok: Royal Thai Government, Department of Fine Arts, 1934 [c. 1870], p. 43.
William L. Bradley, “The Accession of King Mongkut,” Journal of the Siam Society, 1969, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 149-162.
Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 38-74 (on the royal monopoly trade), 75-110 (on the tax-farming system).
The old saying that “ten merchants are not equal to the patronage of one nobleman” (Sarasin, Tribute and Profit, p. 218, citing Prince Damrong Rachanuphap) may well have been aimed specifically at the lucrative patron-client relationships formed between That and his many Chinese business associates.
Sir John Bowring, The Kingdom and People of Siam, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1969 [1857], vol. 2, p. 227.
Ibid., pp. 289-290.
Mead, Rise and Decline, pp. 32-33.
His daughter Samli was accepted as a consort of King Mongkut and bore five daughters, one of whom, Princess Sukhuman Marasi, became a queen of her half-brother, King Chulalongkorn, and bore Prince Boriphat Sukhumphan, founder of the Boriphat lineage.
A near facsimile of primogeniture appears in the superior ranks, titles, functions, and privileged inheritance portions that were regularly allotted to eldest sons and sons of senior wives in elite society. Like many other Thai elite social institutions, that convention emulated the timeworn Chinese patriarchal system, in contrast to the bilateral kinship practices and looser seniority norms of the lesser social orders. The many Thai folk tales lauding loving fraternal relations – suggesting that such idealistic parables served as a necessary cautionary guide – are exemplified by the Ramayana account of Rama (“Phra Ram”) and his younger brother, Lakshman (“Phra Lak”) (Frederick B. Goss, “‘Anucha’: The Younger Brother in Ramakien and Thai Historical Narratives,” Rian Thai: International Journal of Thai Studies, 2008, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 26-51).
Thipakorawong, loc. cit.
Thipakorawong, Phra racha phongsawadan . . . rachakan thi 3, pp. 76-77; Kukrit Pramoj, Khrong kraduk nai tu [Skeletons in the Closet], Bangkok: Dok Ya, 2000 [1971], pp. 91-93. The execution of that ranking Bunnag family member appears to have been regretted by later kings, as suggested by the elevation of one of Sanit’s surviving daughters to a consort of Rama IV, another to a consort of Rama V, and a third in marriage to a royal family affiliate later promoted to chaophraya.
The villages were Toek Daeng (a Shia merchants’ settlement and its Kuwat il-Islam Mosque) and Ban Talat Hailam (a small Hainanese fishermen’s settlement and marketplace featuring Sanchao Po Soea).
As with other long Thai appellations, these temple names have been abbreviated in subsequent references for convenience.
Jane Bunnag, Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study of Urban Monastic Organization in Central Thailand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 51-85.
A congruent contrast is evident between another pair of Bunnag family temples, Wat Buppharam and Wat Anongkharam, built nearby, contemporaneously about a decade later under the principal sponsorships, respectively, of Than Phuying Chan, senior wife of Dit, and Than Phuying Nong, senior wife of That. Like Wat Prayurawong and Wat Phichaiyat, those two temples were distinguished from one another in their contrasting Thammayut and Mahanikai sectarian affiliations, though in the opposite direction (for reasons too arcane to dwell on here).
Over the years, several efforts at Thammayut-Mahanikai coexistence at Wat Phichaiyat proved unsuccessful. In 1942, however, during a period of heightened Mahanikai-Thammayut sectarian tensions and political agitation, the abbot of Wat Phichaiyat and his monastic entourage converted to the Mahanikai Order, and since then Wat Phichaiyat has been officially listed as Mahanikai.
On the parallel histories of the two temples, compare “Prawat wat prayurawongsawat worawihan” [History of Wat Prayurawongsawat Worawihan], in Phra Khru Phisan Sorawuni (Chakrawut), et al., eds., Prinyanuson chalong priantham 9 . . . . [Graduation Ceremony Celebrating the Attainment of the Ninth Level of Monastic Studies . . . .], Bangkok: Wat Mahathat Yuwarat Rangsit, 2015, pp. 45-60; and Prawat wat phichayatikaram worawihan [History of Wat Phichaiyatikaram Worawihan], in Phra Wisuthiyan Methi, et al., eds., Katanyu kata wethitakhun [Gratitude to an Elder], Nonthaburi: Akkhara Printing, 2020, pp. 18-38.
See Footnote 30.
See Footnote 70.
Yet another girls’ school was founded in circa1907 as the endowment of Than Phuying Phan, Chuang’s consort in his old age, on the site of her mansion along Khlong Ban Somdet. That school was later converted to a teachers’ training college, which survives today as the Ban Somdet Chaophraya Rachaphat University (Nantha Withawuthisak et al, 100 pi ban somdet chaophraya: Sathaban rachaphat ban somdet chaophraya [100 Years of Ban Somdet Chaophraya: Rachaphat Ban Somdet Chaophraya University], Bangkok: Amarin, 1996).
Although isolated cases of marriage took place between Phichaiyat women and Prayurawong men over the course of the first five generations, none appear to have occurred between Prayurawong women and Phichaiyat men, reflecting the family pecking order.
Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century, p. 112; cf. Ian G. Brown, The Creation of the Modern Ministry of Finance in Siam, 1885–1910, London: Macmillan, 1992, p. 14.
Mead, Rise and Decline, pp. 58-60; Chaiyan Rajchagool, The Rise and Fall of the Thai Absolute Monarchy, Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994, pp. 85-92.
“Sarup lamdap kan soep sakun trong khong nai det bunlong” [Summary of the genealogy of Mr. Det Bunlong], in Anuson nai ngan phra rachathan phloeng sop sasatrachan phiset det bunlong . . . [Commemoration of the Royally Sponsored Cremation of Professor Det Bunlong . . .], Bangkok: 2010, p. 46.
In a dramatic revelation of the Bunnag connection to this case, the investigatory committee uncovered a number of irregularities, including the fact that Nut “had taken liberties in distributing the state’s rice to his family and to his patron, Somdet Chaophraya [Si Suriyawong]” (Mead, Rise and Decline, p. 59, citing Thailand, National Archives, NA, R5 S 5/9 (K-B)).
Nigel J. Brailey, “The Origins of the Siamese Forward Movement in Western Laos, 1859-1892,” doctoral dissertation, University of London, 1968, p. 258, cited in Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 88 (brackets in the original).
Brown, Creation of the Modern Ministry, pp. 14-18, 21-22, 40 (fn. 3), 41 (fn.19). As with other knowledgeable studies on 19th-century Bunnag-Crown relations, Brown submerges the Bunnags’ inner social relationships and departmental directorships under the penumbra of its senior elder, the Minister of War, leaving the misleading impression that all Bunnag wealth was controlled by that one personage, thereby obscuring, among other things, the continuing economic independence of the Phichaiyat branch.
Chuang’s accomplishments in square-rigger construction at Chanthaburi and later steamer construction at the Khlong San and Yannawa shipyards led to him being known as "father of the Siamese navy" (F. Holm-Peterson, Windjammers Under the Old Elephant Flag: Notes About the Old Siamese Merchant Navy 1824-1900, Troense, Denmark: The Maritime Museum, 1979, p. 42, citing Samuel Smith, Siam Repository, 1873).
Chaophraya Thipakorawong (trans. by Chadin Flood), The Dynastic Chronicles, Bangkok Era, the Fourth Reign (B.E. 2394-2411, Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1965-1973 [c. 1870], vol. 3, pp. 555-558.
Bowring, Kingdom and People vol. 2, p. 282; also see p. 304.
Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, pp. 95-96.
To facilitate that assignment and to assist him in his other duties, he presented Chuang and Kham with a pair of well-appointed estates along the outer bank of the city moat, Khlong Ong Ang, within an easy carriage ride of the Grand Palace; they appear to have used those facilities for most of their tenure as offices rather than as primary residences (Nathawuti Sutthisongkhram, Somdet chaophraya borom maha si suriyawong, Bangkok: Sangsan Books, 2008 [1980], pp. 145-146).
That provincial extension of Bunnag family wealth-generating control did not go unnoticed by King Chulalongkorn. “The dislodging of the Bunnag nobility from its command of political power at the top went hand in hand with the dissolution of the localized structures of power which were the power base of the Bunnag nobility” (Chaiyan, Rise and Fall, p. 90).
That maneuver contributed to the continuing tensions between the young king and the Bunnag family head, culminating in the 1873/74 Front Palace Incident – in effect, it is generally said, a failed coup attempt – and the abolition of the viceregal institution and dismantling of the Front Palace itself in 1886 shortly after the death of Prince Wichaichan.
Wyatt, "Family Politics," p. 224.
Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 56.
The head of that mission, Thuam’s elder brother Chum (Phraya Montri Suriyawong), died less than a decade later, prematurely ending a promising career with the Trade Ministry and opening unexpected opportunities for Thuam’s career advancement.
The government acquired that garden estate from his heirs for conversion to the Somdet Chaophraya Hospital, which remains at that location to this day.
Tej Bunnag, The Provincial Administration of Siam 1892-1915, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977.
While ordinarily viewed as no more than royal retreats and architectural adventures, the hilltop Phra Nakhon Khiri Palace (Phetchaburi, Fourth Reign), Phra Ram Rachaniwet Palace (Phetchaburi, late Fifth Reign), and Maroe Khathayawan Palace (Phetchaburi’s Cha-am township, Sixth Reign), as well as the Sanam Chan Palace (Nakhon Pathom, Sixth Reign), additionally served as politically purposeful, physically and financially imposed royal intrusions into the Bunnag provincial stronghold (Ross King and Sompong Amnuay-ngerntra “A Tale of Three Palaces: Heritage and Interpretation,” in Ross King, ed., Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand: Memory, Place and Power, Singapore: NUS Press, 2017, pp. 48-67).
The life of Thet’s daughters among King Chulalongkorn’s 153 consorts is examined in Leslie Woodhouse, “Concubines with Cameras: Royal Siamese Consorts Picturing Femininity and Ethnic Difference in Early 20th Century Siam,” Women’s Camera Work: Asia, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012. Available at http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.7977573.0002.202
In the French Foreign Office documents of the day, he is referred to as “phra Siphiphat Rajikosa Thipusi,” “superintendant des revenus de l’État” (Dominique Le Bas, “La venue de l’ambassade siamoise en France en 1861,” Aséanie, vol. 3, 1999, p. 96), a functional attribution considerably in excess of his actual mandate.
Iam and his Sampheng-born descendants Det (Phraya Phaibun Sombat) and Dan (Chaophraya Phichaiyat) provide a remarkable example of the inter-ethnic consequences of That’s patronage of Bangkok’s Taechiu business community.
His reduced standing in the nobility following his separation from government service and socially inappropriate Sampheng marriage and residency were probably major factors in his 1895 defeat in a court case contesting his ownership of a valuable Yannawa waterfront property (a former Front Palace shipyard) that he claimed had been bequeathed to him by the Fourth-Reign viceroy (Phra Pin Klao, otherwise known as the Second King) in recognition of his administrative services. Failing to produce documentary evidence, he was not supported in his claim by the king, nor was his word as a phraya accepted by the court as sufficient surety (Phanni Bualek and Aphinya Nonnat, “Wat phraya krai” [Wat Phraya Krai], Moeang Boran, 2013, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 55-56). The site’s subsequent reversion to the Crown provided a convenient opportunity for the Privy Purse soon thereafter to rent out the land on a long-term lease to the East Asiatic Company. The site survives today as the Asiatique riverfront shopping center and amusement park.
Two Prayurawong-line sons, Mek (Phraya Wongsa Phonphisut) and Nokyung (Phraya Aphai Songkhram), also held Front Palace office under the Fifth-Reign viceroy, but their livelihoods in the wake of the viceroy’s death and abolition of the viceregal institution were secured by their powerful Prayurawong family connections, and their lineages survived.
The French Foreign Office records of the time refer to him as “phra Navaï,” describe him as “Chef du conseil formé des fils du roi, des ministers et des grands du royaume” and as “le fils de minister de la Guerre également Premier ministre qui est le chef du parti opposé à la France,” and yet speak of him as an accomplished naval officer (Le Bas, “La venue de l’ambassade siamoise,” p. 96).
Both quotes are contained in Thipakorawong, Dynastic Chronicles, . . . the Fourth Reign, vol. 3, p. 218, citing Pensri Duke, Relations entre la France et la Thailande (Siam) au XIXe siècle d’après les archives des Affaires Étrangeres, Bangkok: Librairie Chalermnit, 1962, p. 51.
The case of Won’s eldest daughter Phae provides an instructive example of Bunnag-royal intermarriage. She entered the Grand Palace, as did many a nobleman’s daughter, at puberty for her “finishing school” education. There, in 1868, she bore a daughter by Prince Chulalongkorn (the future Rama V). She subsequently bore two further royal daughters, but no sons, which truncated her line, as the king’s daughters were held too senior in rank to wed anyone inferior to a king. As palace women, the widow and her spinster daughters lived out their years in secluded luxury. In the Sixth Reign, around age 60 and well after the death of all three daughters, she was promoted to the distinguished rank and title of Chaokhun Phra Prayurawong, possibly for no reason more important than her remembered kindnesses to Prince Wachirawut (later Rama VI) during his shy, quiet, unassuming childhood years. She was given leave to retire to her ancestral estate in the former Bunnag stronghold as patron of the Soeksa Nari School, which continues in operation there to this day.
In addition, two of Won’s other daughters produced royal lines. His daughter Mot became a Fifth Reign consort and bore Prince Aphakon Kiantiwong (founder of the Aphakon lineage) and Prince Suriyong Prayurawong (founder of the Suriyong lineage). His daughter Maen became a consort of King Chulalongkorn’s younger full-brother and bore three children all of whom were promoted to senior (phra ong chao) royal rank. One of them, titled Princess Chaloemkhet Mongkhon, married King Chulalongkorn’s son Prince Yukhon Khamphon (founder of the Yukhon lineage). The Bunnag lineage, through those and other of its daughters, thereby reinforced its place vis-à- vis the Chakri Dynasty.
Phraya Suriyanuwat, Naksethakit khon raek khong moeang thai [The First Economist of Thailand], Bangkok: Thai Watthana Phanit, 1980; Yuangrat Wedel and Paul Wedel, Radical Thought, Thai Mind: A History of Revolutionary Ideology in a Traditional Society, rev. ed., Seattle, WA: Kindle Store (Amazon.com), pp. 50-57.
It remains a moot point whether the return of that land grant to the Crown was a voluntary act or imposed under the royal right of eminent domain (Tomas Larsson, Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012, pp. 31-34, 52-57). Although a seemingly intractable conundrum, the broader ramifications of that issue extend to the expropriation of large swaths of the Bunnag stronghold for public purposes under the successive governments of the post-1932 constitutional monarchy.
Dan’s basic chronology is derived from “Prawat [chaophraya phichaiyat]” [Biography (of Chaophraya Phichaiyat)], in Damrong Rachanuphap, Thiaw Moeang Phama [Travels in Burma], Bangkok: printed for the royally sponsored cremation of Chaophraya Phichaiyat (Dan Bunnag), 1946, pp. (2)-(14).
Thai legal scholar (anonymous), personal communication, 2019.
Ibid.
Benjamin A. Batson, The End of the Absolute Monarchy in Siam. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 107.
As presiding officer of the National Assembly, Dan received the signed constitution from the enthroned king and then led a solemn procession to the royal plaza for a public viewing of the signed document. Phraya Manoprakon Nithithada (Kon Hutasingh), also a judge and serving as Chairman of the Committee of the People (de facto Prime Minister) had a few minutes earlier formally presented the document to the king for his signature. The densely symbolic drama of that event is evoked with graphic precision in Thanavi Chotipradit, “From 24th June to 10th December: The Political Life of the Ananta Samakom Throne Hall in 1932,” Na Jua [Gables], vol. 13, 2016, pp. 10-37.
As an additional, nongovernmental career, Dan served as a member of the board of the Siamese Red Cross from 1925 to 1939, presiding as its Secretary General from 1932.
Constitution of the Kingdom of Siam, 10 December 1932.
Announcement Regarding the Abolition of Ranks, 9 May 1942.
Family Law, Civil and Commercial Code, 1935, Article 1445.3, 27 May 1935.
That motif has been largely relegated to footnotes in the preceding pages in representation of the subordinate position assigned to women within Siam’s feudal society, but in referring to half the population it surely deserves more than footnote status in the Bunnag family’s history. Nevertheless, polygyny was already well on the wane among the ruling elite by the 1930s owing to Western cultural influence, the abandonment of concubinage by Rama VI and Rama VII, and the nobility’s slipping wealth and power.
Despite its social leveling and physical dispersal over the course of the 20th century, the Bunnag family has continued to celebrate its collective heritage and demonstrate its solidarity with periodic gatherings at Wat Prayurawong and Wat Phichaiyat, as well as at Ayutthaya’s tomb of Sheik Ahmad and at the statue of Somdet Chaophraya Borom Maha Si Suriyawong at his namesake Rachaphat University, among other sites of remembrance (Tej Bunnag, personal communication, 2020). Clearly, the factional divisions of a former era have long been resolved and largely forgotten.
Batson, End of the Absolute Monarchy, p. 248.
A last hurrah of the old nobility was heard in the Senate appointed in 1946. That legislative body included nine Bunnags -- Tan (Phraya Chaisurin), Anusonthi (Phraya Song Surarat), Phong (Phra Nithi Naiprasan), Sawat (Phraya Siharat Dechochai), Tin (Phraya Suphan Sombat), Tiam-surawong (Phraya Surawong Wiwat), Tao (Phraya Suriyanuwong Prawat), Krachang (Luang Suriyaphong Phisutthiphaet, and Tom (Phraya Aphiban Rachamaitri, who served as that Senate’s Vice President) – not to mention a number of other members affiliated with the Bunnags through mother or marriage. The dissolution of that Senate with the 1951 change in government marked the end of the old nobility.
“A legend is an attempt to explain the inexplicable; emerging as it does from a basis of truth, it is bound to end in the inexplicable” (Franz Kafka, “The Rescue Will Begin in Its Own Time,” The New Yorker, June 29, 2020, p. 53).