Katya & The Prince of Siam

Mongkut also travelled about his realm, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in his paddle-steamer, showing himself to his subjects whereas, before his time, it had been taboo even to look on the monarch’s countenance.

His austere, high-cheekboned face was clearly marked by his years in the monastery: remote, unsmiling, he had more the aspect of an idol than a man. Credited with an irascible temperament, he was also imperious and thought nothing of summoning to his presence, at dead of night, not only servants or courtiers, but missionaries and, on one occasion at least, the British Consul. Fetched from his bed, this official, as he hastened to the palace, revolved in his mind every combination of alarming event that could justify so untoward a command, but on arrival found the King, dictionary in hand, merely desiring his definition of a word.

Following the custom of those days, Mongkut was a polygamist; indeed he was credited with having thirty-two wives and eighty-two children. This was naturally considered extremely shocking by the missionaries, one of whom, an American named Dr Bradley, reproached the King for placing an effigy of one of his wives in a temple but was rendered speechless by the Monarch enquiring how this differed from the Albert Memorial!

Mongkut’s wives and children lived in a part of the palace – almost a small township – called not the harem but the ‘Inside’ which, far from being the scene of voluptuous debauchery, was as strictly organised as a finishing-school. Here were houses, gardens, shops, lakes and even the Inside’s own law-courts and police-station. There was a Directress, who had various officials under her and, as each Queen had her own retinue of 200 to 300 women, which was increased if she bore a child, the total population of the Inside was somewhere near three thousand. This figure also comprised, in addition to wives and minor wives, the King’s sons until they reached puberty, nurses, servants, women in charge of the King’s kitchens, and a female police-force which guarded the gates, patrolling at night with torches and, should a man be admitted for repair or construction work, remaining closely at his side until he left.

 

 

Anna Leonowens.

 

Mrs Leonowens, the English Governess engaged to teach the royal children in 1862, despite her strong moral disapproval of polygamy, paints a most charming picture of the ‘ladies of the harem, who amuse themselves in the early and late hours of the day, feeding birds in the aviaries and goldfish in the pond, twining garlands to adorn the heads of their children, arranging bouquets, singing songs of love or glory, dancing to the music of the guitar, listening to their slaves reading, strolling with their little ones through the parks and parterres, and especially in bathing. When the heat is least oppressive, they plunge into the waters of the pretty tiered lakes, swimming and diving like flocks of brown waterfowl.’ As well as these diversions, there were theatrical shows, marionettes, card playing, gambling on the daily lotteries, and flying kites in March and April – the kite-flying season. Fed, housed and clothed, the Queens and their ladies, free from care though close-confined, seemed even to the censorious Englishwomen like denizens of an enchanted world.

Following his success in making English the second language of Siam, Mongkut decided it was an advantage that should be offered to the Inside, together with a light dusting of educational instruction. In the newspaper The Bangkok Calendar

1859, we read: ‘His Majesty the King has requested the Protestant Missions in Bangkok to furnish a preceptress for the royal females’ and, this request being granted, ‘No small amount of knowledge on various subjects was communicated to His Majesty’s large and interesting family.’ But alas, except for a very few, ‘the royal females’ showed but little inclination or aptitude for study and it was then that the King, recognising defeat, decided that his many children might make better scholars, and engaged the aforementioned Mrs Leonowens to be their Governess. A young widow of twenty-seven, she remained in Siam for that purpose for five years and, after writing An English Governess at the Siamese Court in 1870, followed it in 1873 by Romance of a Harem. However, it was not until 1945 that a novel by Margaret Landon, Anna and the King of Siam based on both these books, became a best-seller in America and led to its transformation into the musical ‘The King and I’.

Although Mrs Leonowens was hampered by her imperfect grasp of the Siamese language, she gives a fascinating and charmingly written account of her unusual post, but one over-spiced by a liberal addition of imaginary melodramatic incidents which the eventual musical – as was only to be expected – exaggerated one hundredfold.