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Thailand's First Revolution? The role of religious mobilization and ‘the people’ in the Ayutthaya rebellion of 1688

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2021

Alan Strathern Open the ORCID record for Alan Strathern [Opens in a new window]
Alan Strathern*
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Brasenose College, University of Oxford
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*Email: alan.strathern@history.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

In the 1680s, King Narai, ruler of the cosmopolitan kingdom of Ayutthaya, was the subject of competing French and Persian attempts to convert him to monotheism. These attempts were not only embarrassing failures; they also helped to precipitate a coup in 1688, in which Phetracha forcefully intervened to place himself on the throne and eject French influence from the realm. But to what extent did the execution of the coup depend on popular involvement? And what ideals and emotions seem to have animated this participation? After pondering the role of ethnicity and xenophobic sentiment, this article considers the construction of powerful discourses of Buddhist intellectual opposition to Christianity, the role of the sangha in the orchestration of the coup itself, and then considers in more detail the extent to which ‘the people’ demonstrated some kind of autonomous political agency. Lastly, it considers whether the events of the coup and its immediate aftermath were shaped by anti-Christian emotion. As a movement with conservative and restorative aims, 1688 was not a ‘revolution’ in the modern sense, but it may have ushered in an enlarged sense of popular investment in the legitimation of royal contenders associated with the defence of Buddhism.

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Research Article
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , July 2022 , pp. 1295 - 1328
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 des Verquains, Jean Vollant, Histoire de la révolution de Siam arrivée en l'année 1688 (Lille, 1691), p. 1Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., dedication.

3 There is much good literature on this subject already. See, for example, Dirk van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, 1500–1700, Michael Smithies (trans.) (Chiang Mai, 2002), which may be consulted for a detailed narrative of events, and Baker, Chris and Phongpaichit, Pasuk, A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World (Cambridge, 2017), Chapter 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. ‘Cosmopolitan’ here signifies a space characterized by ethnic and cultural pluralism, as in the first definition of the term given in Strathern, Alan and Biedermann, Zoltán, ‘Introduction: Querying the Cosmopolitan in Sri Lankan and Indian Ocean History’, in Strathern, Alan and Biedermann, Zoltán (eds), Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History (London, 2017)Google Scholar. One significant example of this is the impact of Persian aesthetics at the court: see Chularatna, Julispong, ‘Indo-Persian Influence on Late Ayutthaya Art, Architecture, and Design’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 105 (2017), pp. 43–72Google Scholar.

4 Explored in Strathern, Alan, ‘Tensions and Experimentations of Kingship: King Narai and His Response to Missionary Overtures in the 1680s’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 107, Pt. 2 (2019), pp. 17–41Google Scholar.

5 Six hundred troops had been sent, but a number died or were incapacitated by illness during the voyage.

6 Bèze, Claude de, Mémoire du Pere de Bèze sur la vie de Constance Phaulkon, premier minister du roi de Siam Phra Narai et sa triste fin, Drans, Jean and Bernard, Henri (eds) (Tokyo, 1947), pp. 95–100, 144–5Google Scholar.

7 The deliberations of the senate in Macao in November 1688 also referred to the ‘revoluções’ in Ayutthaya. Halikowski-Smith, Stefan, Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640–1720 (Leiden, 2011), p. 366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 In revolutions proper, it is not only the incumbents of office or particular policies that are challenged, but also the principles on which power is distributed and wielded. Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China (Cambridge 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for example, distinguishes political and social revolutions, but neither apply here.

9 As mentioned below, I take my cue from the discussion in Baker and Pasuk's History of Ayutthaya, which they were kind enough to let me see in draft form.

10 Therefore, much of my recent work on Ayutthaya will be condensed as a major case study in Alan Strathern, Converting Kings: Kongo, Japan, Thailand and Hawaii Compared 1450–1850 (Cambridge, forthcoming).

11 These and following concepts are explained at length in Strathern, Alan, Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History (Cambridge, 2019), Chapter 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 But the reverse is not true.

13 Divinized kingship may in turn be broken down into two subtypes, namely cosmic and heroic kingship, but it is not necessary to explore this here.

14 See Strathern, Alan, ‘Sacred Kingship under King Narai (1656–88): Divinization and Righteousness’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 107, Pt. 1 (2019), pp. 49–78Google Scholar, and ‘Tensions and Experimentations’.

15 François-Timoléon de Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686 (Paris, 1687), p. 244.

16 Once again, the two modes were often combined, particularly in South, Southeast, and East Asia.

17 Gunawardana, R. A. L. H., Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka (Tucson, 1979), p. 344Google Scholar.

18 Simon de La Loubère, ‘Étude historique et critique du livre de Simon de La Loubère ‘Du Royaume de Siam’, Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h (ed.) (Paris, 1987), pp. 397–8, 439, 452, claims that Narai therefore forbade ‘any monk to come into his presence without expressly being commanded to do so except for the chief Sangkharat’. Tachard, Guy, Voyage de Siam des Pères Jésuites Envoyez par le Roy aux Indes & à la Chine: avex leurs Observations, Astronomiques, et leurs Remarques de Physique, de Géographie, d'Hydrographie, & d'Histoire (Paris, 1686), p. 416Google Scholar; Nicolas Gervaise, Histoire naturelle et politique du Royaume du Siam (Paris, 1688), pp. 190–1.

19 Just two examples: Gervaise, Histoire, p. 65; Polenghi, Cesare, ‘G.F. de Marini's Delle Missioni (1663): An Annotated Translation of the Chapters on Cambodia, Siam and Makassar’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 95 (2007), p. 56Google Scholar.

20 Strathern, ‘Sacred Kingship under King Narai’ and ‘Tensions and Experimentations’ make use of: Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (trans., ed.), The Palace Law of Ayutthaya and the Thammasat: Law and Kingship in Siam (Ithaca/New York, 2016); Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, Yuan Phai, the Defeat of Lanna: A Fifteenth Century Thai Epic Poem (Washington, 2017); Tun Aung Chain (ed.), Chronicle of Ayutthaya: A translation of the Yodaya yazawin (Yangon, 2005), a Burmese source; R. Cushman (trans.) and D. Wyatt (eds), ‘Translating Thai Poetry: Cushman, and King Narai's ‘Long Song Prophecy for Ayutthaya’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 89 (2001); Dhiravat na Pombejra (trans.), ‘Khlong chaloem phrakiat somdet phra narai: chabap sun manutwithaya sirinthon (sms) [Eulogy of King Narai, Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre Edition]’, in Winai Pongsripian and Trongjai Hutangkura (eds), Moradok khwam songjam haeng nopaburi si lawotayapura wa duai khlong chaloemphrakiat somdet phra narai lae jaruek boran haeng mueang lawo [Legacy of Nopaburi Si Lawotayapura in the Eulogy of King Narai and Ancient Inscriptions of Lawo] (Bangkok, 2015), pp. 61–140.

21 Consider the highly mythicized account of the Thai ambassador's display of magical powers in France in Wyatt, David K. (ed.) and Cushman, Richard D. (trans.), The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya (Bangkok, 2000), p. 275Google Scholar. See the discussion in Eoseewong, Nidhi, Pen and Sail: Literature and History in Early Bangkok (Chiang Mai, 2005), pp. 294–308Google Scholar. An analysis of the various accounts of Narai's reign in the different recensions of the chronicle would be a valuable exercise.

22 See the section below on the murals. The decree, Phraratchakamnot kao [Old Royal Decrees] 37, Kotmai tra sam duang [Three Seals Law], vol. 5, pp. 98–99 (Bangkok, 1994). Visudh Busayakul (trans.), The Diary of Kosa Pan (Thai Ambassador to France. June–July 1686) (Chiang Mai, 2002) is also referred to below.

23 See, for example, the letter by Véret, 3 March 1689, in an Appendix to de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 144; Marcel Le Blanc, Histoire de la révolution du royaume de Siam, arrivée en l'année 1688 (Lyon, 1692), vol. I, pp. 128, 162.

24 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 20–9.

25 See the section on ‘Siamese Absolutism’ in Strathern, ‘Sacred Kingship under King Narai’.

26 His temper declined following the death of his queen and half-sister in 1681 and the discovery in 1683 that his half-brother Chaofa Noi was engaged in adultery with Phetracha's sister (Dhiravat na Pombejra, ‘A Political History of Siam Under the Prasatthong Dynasty: 1629–1688’, PhD thesis, University of London, 1984, pp. 343–6). Narai had Chaofa Noi beaten so badly that he was left practically dumb and physically weak (de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 70). Phetracha was involved in administering the beating and may already have deliberately facilitated Chaofa Noi's downfall, given his popularity before this event.

27 According to the likes of La Loubère (Étude historique, pp. 367–70), foreign traders had also begun to desert Ayutthaya due to the suffocating impact of royal monopolies. Also see Gervaise, Histoire, p. 183; Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 156–7.

28 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 50–1, 100–1. See Ruangsilp, Bhawan, Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayutthaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom, ca. 1604–1765 (Leiden/Boston, 2007), p. 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Dutch evidence for the jealousy aroused by Phaulkon.

29 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 20–30; de Choisy, Journal, pp. 198–9.

30 The anonymous letter of an English Catholic cited by van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, p. 324. It is worth noting in this context La Loubère's (Étude historique, p. 240) comment that Siamese women did not easily give themselves to foreigners.

31 See van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, pp. 412–4; Hutchinson, E. W., Adventurers in Siam in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1940), Chapter 6Google Scholar.

32 See also letter of Fontaney, 12 May 1687, in Tachard, Voyage, p. 258.

33 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 88. Some French observers quite understood. See, for example, Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, p. 15, referring to ‘a tolerance so contrary to all the laws of Politics’.

34 Hence Phaulkon's insistence in correspondence that French troops must behave themselves: Constance Phaulkon to Père Tachard, 3 October 1687, Tokyo Bunko MS 77. Also see de Choisy, Journal, p. 258; Claude Céberet, Étude historique et critique du Journal du voyage de Siam de Claude Céberet, Envoyé extraordinaire du Roi en 1687 et 1688, Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h (ed.) (Paris, 1992), p. 122; Bhawan, Dutch East India Company, p. 129, refers to Dutch evidence as to the anger aroused by the ‘impudent wantonness’ of the French; Hutchinson, Adventurers, p. 166, citing letter of Abbé de Lionne.

35 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 29.

36 And his suspicions of Phaulkon's plotting were far from paranoid: Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 218–27; Lieutenant de La Touche, ‘Relation de ce qui est arrivé dans le Royaume de Siam en 1688’, in Challe, Robert, Journal Du Voyage des Indes Orientales, prepared by Jacques Popin and Frédéric Deloffre (Geneva, 1998), pp. 309, 333Google Scholar; de Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 99–101. Phaulkon was well aware of these fears: Phaulkon to Tachard, October 1687, Tokyo Bunko MS 77.

37 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 130; cf. Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 218–9.

38 As a comparison with nineteenth-century uprisings against later projects of European colonialism would indicate: consider the 1857 uprising against the British in India, in which an old order based around kingship was defended rather than any defined sense of Indian nationality or ethnicity. On the other hand, it does not follow that such uprisings are merely culturally neutral calculations of material interest; they are normally aroused in order to defend some symbolically resonant features of the old order.

39 For discussion of the contemporary resonances of phrases such as liberté publique and patrie, I am grateful to Giora Sternberg and Sophie Nicholls. Patrie evokes the Roman concept, and was used in the sense of a body politic that could inspire civic as well as religious duties.

40 For example, La Loubère, Étude historique, p. 356: ‘to die for their prince and country (pays) is not a virtue in their practice. Amongst them are not found the powerful motives by which our people animate themselves to a vigorous defence.’ This is part of a generalizing orientalizing discourse. In light of 1688, it was both prescient (because Narai was not defended) and badly wrong (because the people were indeed animated to participate).

41 One exception is Gervaise, Histoire, p. 70, who, writing before 1688, notes: ‘it is remarkable to what extremes the natural pride of this nation, apparently so humble and simple, will go. There is no good citizen who will willingly suffer a foreigner, whoever they may be, to take precedence over him or to be seated above him.’

42 Desfarges, Relation des revolutions arrivées a Siam dans l'année 1688 (Amsterdam, 1691), p. 1, and see p. 21.

43 Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, p. 15; cf. also Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 128, for ‘civic liberty’.

44 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 162, and see pp. 128–32.

45 Ibid., p. 52. This echoes a phrase of Desfarges, Relation, p. 6, that by showing his concern for the sangha, Phetracha had shown ‘his heart to be truly Siamese, full of esteem for his Nation, and contempt for others’.

46 Ibid., p. 61.

47 Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 206–8; Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830. Volume 1: Integration on the Mainland (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 275, 313–30, notes that by the late seventeenth century, local phrai had come to regard themselves as Siamese and yet notes four factors that encouraged a looser tie between ethnicity and loyalty than maintained in Burma.

48 John S. F. Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity in Early Modern Thailand, 1351–1767’, PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Michigan, 2019.

49 Ibid., p. 123.

50 Ibid., p. 199.

51 He is the ‘Thai ambassador’, for example. See the Introduction by Dirk van der Cruysse to Busayakul (trans.), Diary of Kosa Pan, pp. 28–9, and La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 133–4, which also reflects on the term ‘Siam’. John Smith (personal communication, 8 February and 5 March 2017) tells me that Kosa Pan refers to his state as ‘krung thai’.

52 Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, p. 147.

53 I do not assume that ‘Theravada’ functioned as an emic term in the modern sense (see Peter Skilling et al. (eds), How Theravāda Is Theravāda? Exploring Buddhist Identities (Chiang Mai, 2012)). Smith's analysis is close to Chris Baker's observation in conversation (Bangkok, July 2016) that a sense of concentric circles of foreignness operated in which a salient inner circle was inhabited by Thai, Mon, Khmer, Lao, and Peguans who had assimilated ‘Siamese’ culture. Alain Forest, Les missionnaires français au Tonkin at au Siam (XVIIe–XVIIe siècles): Analyse comparée d'un relatif succès et d'un échec total, 3 vols (Paris, 1998), vol. III, pp. 379, 445, may be too broad-brush, then, in representing straightforward distinctions between autochthones and foreigners. Note David K. Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History (Chiang Mai, 2001), pp. 76, 86, who suggests that, as the kingdom's elite were exposed to cosmopolitan influences, they more self-consciously identified with their own culture.

54 Especially from the reign of Ekathotsarot (r. 1605–10), Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, pp. 168–70.

55 Gervaise, Histoire, p. 45.

56 Also see Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 81; the headmen were overseen by an official, the Ōkuyā Phra Khlang.

57 Strathern, ‘Tensions and Experimentations’.

58 Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, p. 147.

59 Baker, Chris et al. (eds), Van Vliet's Siam (Chiang Mai, 2005), pp. 45–62Google Scholar.

60 Polenghi, ‘G. F. de Marini's Delle Missioni’, p. 54.

61 I am grateful to Chris Baker for providing me with this translation of the text contained in Phraratchakamnot kao [Old Royal Decrees] 37, vol. 5, pp. 98–9. It is also discussed in Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 208–9.

62 The decree is not in itself a ban on conversion, but a ban on sexual relations that may lead to conversion. (We do not see reference to this decree in the missionary sources; it is possible that it lapsed in the 1670s when Narai's relations with the sangha worsened.) It appears to be a stronger and more religion-focused version of a law from the reign of Songtham (r. 1610–29) or Prasat Thong (r. 1629–56), by which children born to a Thai or Mon parent on one side and a tang prathet (foreigner) on the other must not be raised to be micchādiṭṭhi (wrong thinkers). Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, p. 181.

63 Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, p. 209 refers to three groups: ‘Muslims and others from India and the Middle East (Khaek); Muslims and others from the peninsula and archipelago (Khula, Malayu); and Christians from Europe (Farang, English).’ It is interesting that it does not mention the Japanese Christians, many of whom had arrived after 1637—presumably because they did not proselytize.

64 See the discussion of 1731 below, and Forest, Les missionnaires français, III, pp. 360, 377–8, 412, who is generally concerned to underline that Theravada Buddhism has been ‘been more combative than it is usually represented’, partly because he takes a long-term view. Also, Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, pp. 204–5.

65 de Bourges, Jacques, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l'Evêque de Béryte, vicaire apostolique du royaume de la Cochinchine, par la Turquie, la Perse, les Indes, &c. jusqu'au royaume de Siam & autres lieux (Paris, 1666), p. 170Google Scholar. Forest, Les missionnaires français, III, p. 357, argues that in fact the process of intellectual neutralization must already have been stimulated by the presence of Islam. See La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 253–4, on the Siamese facility in debate.

66 See Strathern, Converting Kings. Compare an argument from 1582 in Marcelo de Ribadeneira, History of the Philippines and other Kingdoms [1601], Pacita Fernandez (trans.) (Manila, 1970) vol. 1, pp. 42–3, 161–2.

67 La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 416–7; Tachard, Voyage, I, p. 252. In this and what follows, cf. Bowring, John, The Kingdom and People of Siam: With a Narrative of the Mission to that Country in 1855, 2 vols (London, 1857)Google Scholar, vol. I, pp. 336–7.

68 Tachard, Voyage, I, p. 385. This is a reference to Devadatta, as discussed below.

69 Forest, Les missionnaires français, III, p. 394.

70 La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 418–9; Tachard, Voyage, p. 235. When the French clerics were undergoing the trials of the post-1688 persecution, they were sustained by the glory of martyrdom; the Siamese merely noted that their well of merit must have been well and truly exhausted: Le Blanc, Histoire, pp. 286–7; Forest, Les missionnaires français, I, p. 237.

71 De Bourges, Relation, p. 172.

72 Vinaya Pitaka, Khandaka, Cullavagga, 7, but also elsewhere in the canon. See Tachard, Voyage, p. 244, on Jātakas.

73 La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 426–35. La Loubère recognizes the core point (p. 411) that Devadatta was identified with Jesus but does not expand on its significance.

74 Eoseewong, Pen and Sail, p. 264, who emphasizes the Vessantara Jātaka.

75 De Choisy, Journal, p. 308; Alexandre de Chaumont, Relation de l'ambassade de Monsieur le chevalier de Chaumont à la Cour du Roy de Siam, avec ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable durant son voyage (La Haye, 1733), p. 88; Gervaise, Histoire, pp. 118–9, though strangely the latter does not mention the connection to Christianity. Also see Morelli in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 365.

76 Tachard, Voyage, pp. 398–410. Often painted as a dubious figure in the scholarship, Tachard here shows himself to be an insightful source, no doubt aided by his intimacy with Phaulkon (they both spoke Portuguese) and his determined questioning of a monk onboard the Oiseau during his return journey. B. J. Terweil, in his Introduction to Tachard, Guy, A Relation of the Voyage to Siam (Bangkok, 1999), p. xxxGoogle Scholar, notes that the story of Devadatta is retold by Tachard with many accurate details. Cf. Donald S. Lopez Jr, From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha (Chicago, 2013), p. 89. Naturally, in some ways, Tachard's account of Buddhism is garbled, and this telling of the Devadatta story must be unusual in how far it is Christianized—and may even be the result of his conversations with his informant.

77 Tachard, Voyage, p. 404.

78 Lopez, Stone to Flesh, p. 84, comments on the accuracy of La Loubère's rendering of Devadatta's punishment.

79 De Choisy, Journal, p. 308; de Chaumont, Relation, p. 88; Gervaise, Histoire, p. 119.

80 La Loubère, Étude historique, p. 411.

81 See Sven Trakulhun, ‘Accommodating Buddhism: European Travellers and Siamese Religion in the Eighteenth Century’, in Monika Arnez and Jürgen Sarnowsky (eds), The Role of Religions in the European Perception of Insular and Mainland Southeast Asia: Travel Accounts of the 16th to the 21st Century (Newcastle, 2016).

82 Tachard, Voyage, pp. 407–8.

83 Ibid., p. 401.

84 There are other jātakas involving Devadatta in which Buddha is a monkey too, such as Cullanandiya Jātaka (no. 222). Tachard does not appear to grasp the connection with Devadatta, however, and tells the story to show how much ‘the people are infatuated with such fables’.

85 Cullavagga 7.2–3. In La Loubère's version, he also only demonstrates his miraculous powers at the start of the narrative, in converting the prince. La Loubère's text does not bring out the miraculous significance of the elephant taming, but elsewhere (Étude historique, p. 413) refers to Buddha's miraculous powers.

86 Tachard, Voyage, p. 246. This is indeed an indication that the French presence—their technologies, telescopes, doctors, as well as their rituals of divine propitiation—had been felt as presenting a challenge in immanentist terms, albeit not one that had succeeded in overturning a confidence in indigenous techniques: see Strathern, ‘Tensions and Experimentations’.

87 See Strathern, Unearthly Powers, pp. 78–9.

88 La Loubère, Étude historique, pp. 429–30; cf. Cullavagga 7.1. Devadatta's companions attain degrees of enlightenment but he ‘attained to that kind of iddhi (spiritual power) which is attainable even by those who have not entered upon the Excellent Way’.

89 La Loubère, Étude historique, p. 429.

90 Strathern, Converting Kings, looks at the attempts to convert Narai on immanentist grounds.

91 La Loubère, Étude historique, p. 416.

92 Strathern, Unearthly Powers.

93 La Loubère, Étude historique, p. 397. Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h only notes that creeng approximates more to ascetic or austere, and cahat to a word for laymen. According to Chris Baker (personal communication), Creeng might be แกร่ง (kraeng) meaning strong, in this case indicating resolute in belief and practice, while Cahat might be สาหัส (sahat), from Pali sāhasa, which means dire in modern Thai.

94 Tambiah, Stanley J., World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 46–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Indeed, the Theravada monarchs of the region had explicitly asserted their superior Buddhist credentials to justify waging war against each other. Nidhi, Pen and Sail, p. 331.

95 There was no exact equivalent to ‘Buddhism’ or ‘religion’, in emic terms, but the concept of the sāsana, the Buddha's dispensation, or perhaps of the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha), functioned in a similar manner. See Collins, Steven, Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge, 1998), p. 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also Forest, Les missionnaires français, III, p. 396, on the need to protect the Buddhist message for the salvation of people over many lifetimes.

96 The French depiction of the sangha as a distinct element of society is not really problematic. It is not an orientalist distortion to recognize, for example, that the sangha played a roughly equivalent role in Siamese society to that of the Church in Europe.

97 This issue is explored more fully in Strathern, ‘Tensions and Experimentations’ and Converting Kings.

98 Memoir of Phaulkon for Tachard, December 1685, in Adrien Launay (ed.), Histoire de la Mission de Siam: Documents historiques, 2 vols (Paris, 1920), vol. I, pp. 179–80; Constance Phaulkon to Père Tachard, 3 October 1687, Tokyo Bunko MS, f. 77; and the longer letter to Père de la Chaise, 20 November 1686, Tokyo Bunko MS, f. 48. Note also de Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 34, 40–1. De Choisy, Journal, p. 201: ‘when the King wishes to become a Christian, he will have to take measures to safeguard the very well-being of the religion’ and note (p. 391) his comment on the political obstacle presented by the monks.

99 Phaulkon to de la Chaise, November 1686, Tokyo Bunko MS 48 (transcription in de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 169).

100 Tokyo Bunko MS, ff. 5–6; de Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 179–80.

101 See Converting Kings, and also note the Franciscan missionary Giovanni Battista Morelli di Castelnuovo's report in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 358.

102 On 12 May 1687, the Jesuit Jean de Fontaney (Letter in Guy Tachard, Second Voyage du Père Tachard et des Jésuites envoyez par le Roy au Royaume de Siam. Contenant diverses remarques d'Histoire, de Physique, de Géographie, & d’ Astronomie (Middlebourg, 1689), pp. 258–9) reported that, for a year, the king had been ‘chasing the ignorant out of the pagodas’ but, on that day itself, had issued particular orders against the monks, extracting some for his service. This accords with La Loubère's statement (Étude historique, p. 373) that when they arrived in the country (in October 1687), ‘il venait d'en reduire plusieurs milliers à la condition séculière’.

103 De Fontaney in Tachard, Second Voyage, p. 259.

104 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 95.

105 Ibid., pp. 144–5, which goes on to say that the Jesuits were therefore ‘questioned more than once’ about a missionary letter that spoke of the king's regard for Christianity. Phetracha also claimed that Phra Pi was being set up as a Christian puppet (de Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 99–100).

106 Perhaps since 1676 if we can believe one missionary report: ‘And since that time, we have not seen him go to a Temple, in the manner of his predecessors, it was commonly said that he was of the Religion of the Foreigners.’ Relation des Missions et des Voyages des Evesques Vicaires Apostoliques et de leurs ecclèsiastiques ès année 1676 et 1677 (Paris, 1680), p. 215. In 1685, there are some signs that officials were alarmed at the possibility of the king's conversion when it became clear that this is what the Chaumont embassy set out to accomplish: de Choisy, Journal, p. 251 (‘the religion of the pagodes is at an end’). Significantly, the Persian embassy had also picked up on the feeling that Narai's most basic beliefs had been ‘shaken to their foundation’: Ibn Muhammad Rabi, The, Ship of Sulaiman, John O'Kane (trans.) (London, 1972), p. 99.

107 De Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 77–8.

108 Richard III, Act III, scene VII.

109 Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, pp. 13–4; Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 48. Accounts in Smithies, Michael, A Resounding Failure, Martin and the French in Siam, 1672–1693 (Chiang Mai, 1998), pp. 84, 90Google Scholar, also note the role of the sangha and populace.

110 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 144; de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 116. The prime role of the Sangkharat in the coup in rousing action against ‘the insolence of the French’ is brought out in the Portuguese document from Macao, ‘Novas do Reyno de Siam’, in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 360.

111 Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, p. 167; cf. now Smith, ‘State Community and Ethnicity’, p. 210.

112 This is roughly how Dhiravat, Political History, pp. 149–50, describes what happened in earlier succession struggles, as for example that of Prasat Thong.

113 Desfarges, Relation, p. 10. Also see the account by La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 312, reporting that Phetracha warned those ‘of his faction who were city and provincial governors to come and join him’, and they brought an army of 70,000–80,000.

114 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 119; see Dhiravat, Political History, pp. 71–3, on that.

115 On assuming the crown, Phetracha took several measures to please the lower orders. According to Desfarges, Relation, p. 45, these helped to cement his position. According to Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, p. 104, he had previously been developing an image as the protector of the poor.

116 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 115.

117 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 144, describes the ill-disciplined crowd as ‘slaves and Indians carrying arms for the first time in their lives’, but it also includes the Muslim house-guards he controlled.

118 Francisco Nogueira, ‘The Account of Father Francisco Nogueira about Events in Siam 1687–168’, Maria Conceição Flores (trans., ed.), in Michael Smithies (ed.), 500 Years of Thai–Portuguese Relations A Festschrift (Bangkok, 2011), p. 218.

119 De Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 100–1.

120 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 158–9.

121 Ibid., p. 162.

122 Abbé de Lionne, 4 January 1692, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 212.

123 Desfarges, Relation, p. 18. Recall that Phetracha wished to be rid of the problem of the French without stimulating an aggressive French counteraction.

124 Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, p. 64.

125 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 185.

126 Desfarges, Relation, p. 32.

127 La Touche, ‘Relation’, pp. 332–3. The last phrase is in Latin, evoking the crowds demanding the crucifixion of Jesus in John XIX, 15. Michael Smithies (trans., ed.), Three Military Accounts of the 1688 ‘Revolution’ in Siam by General Desfarges, Lieutenant de La Touche and Engineer Jean Vollant des Verquains (Bangkok, 2002), note to pp. 81–2, suggests that this report is implausible because the crowd would not have known Latin, but the phrase is surely a translation of the sense of the crowd's message. In light of the role played by the figure of Devadatta in anti-Christian discourse, it is not at all unlikely that they would have referred to crucifixion.

128 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 338. According to Desfarges, Relation, p. 34, Phetracha had sworn a holy oath that he was acting in behalf of the princes.

129 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 96.

130 Ibid., pp. 146–7. From the perspective of the siege of Bangkok, Desfarges, Relation, pp. 47–8, notes that the death of the princes, among other factors, ‘diminished the fury of the Siamese against us, which was at first so great and general’.

131 I am very grateful to Chris Baker for discussing the issues raised in the paragraph, which are also addressed in Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 192–3, 219–20.

132 Rabi, The,Ship of Sulaiman, p. 132.

133 Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 224–7; also see Bhawan, Dutch East India Company, pp. 161–4.

134 Kaempfer, Engelbert, A Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690 (Bangkok, 1998), p. 37Google Scholar.

135 Forest, Les missionnaires français, I, p. 240.

136 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 280, and see p. 324.

137 See Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, pp. 138–40; a letter of Kosa Pan, 12 December 1693 in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 28; Beauchamp's account in Smithies, Michael (ed.), Witnesses to a Revolution: Siam, 1688 (Bangkok, 2004), p. 82Google Scholar; a letter of Beauchamp, 17 November 1689, in Smithies, Michael (ed.), Seventeenth Century Siamese Explorations: A Collection of Published Articles (Siam Society, 2012), p. 263Google Scholar.

138 I must emphasize therefore that political considerations dominate the timings of the release of prisoners and those who were taken from October to November 1688 onwards. I'm grateful to Tara Alberts for sharing with me some source notes and observations, on the later phase in particular.

139 See Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, pp. 63–4; de Bèze, Mémoire, pp. 127–30.

140 The sources diverge a bit on chronology. Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, which is close to the anonymous Relation des principals circonstances qui sont arrive dans la Révolution du Royaume de Siam en l'anée 1687 (in Smithies, Witnesses, p. 16) and Desfarges, Relation, pp. 22–3, place the arrests before the Abbé de Lionne's visit on 25 May, as do letters from Lionne (Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 207) and Francisco Nogueira, ‘Account’, p. 220: ‘they immediately began to imprison all the Christians who were at that time in Louvo.’ See also Véret, 3 March 1689, in Lingat, Robert, ‘Une lettre de Véret sur la révolution siamoise de 1688’, T'oung Pao, vol. 31 (1935), pp. 351–2Google Scholar.

141 Desfarges, Relation, pp. 22–3.

142 De Bèze, Mémoire, p. 125; Le Blanc, History, p. 71, also has it that the Christians were arrested by the time Desfarges arrived on 2 June. Phaulkon's seals of office were taken, his house ransacked, and finally his wife arrested at this time.

143 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 279–80; cf. the Anonymous, Relation de se qui cest pasé a Louvo, royaume de Siam, avec un abregé de se qui cest pasé a bancoq pendant le siege en 1688, in Smithies, Witnesses, p. 102.

144 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 283.

145 Ibid., p. 314. This included a large family of Castilians who were dragged up from Ayutthaya (p. 316).

146 I have tried to reflect these disagreements in the footnotes.

147 See La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 315, who was taken as a prisoner from Mergui to Lopburi. Another report claims that Phetracha's orders distinguished between the French long established in the country and the troops in Bangkok (‘The Recueil des persecutions’, in Launay, Documents historiques, 1, p. 250). However, Martineau (12 July 1689, ibid., p. 204) has it that at first some French officers in Louvo were arrested, then some Europeans, Englishmen, and others from Phaulkon's guard, and then finally they arrested all the Christian Europeans, Indians, and others who were found to be in Lopburi.

148 In previous upheavals, the downfall of a particular official could entail the persecution of the ethnic group he had allied with—hence the Japanese experienced a purge with the fall of the Okya Senaphimuk in 1629: Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, pp. 193–4.

149 Nogueira, ‘Account’, p. 220, refers to Portuguese being excluded, though this seems an error.

150 La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 314.

151 As brought out in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora.

152 ‘Novas do Reyno de Siam’, in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 363; de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 161, claims that they declared against the French from the first.

153 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 225–6, claims that this was initially a fear of Phetracha's.

154 Ibid., p. 312. Equally telling is the seminary priest from Manila who mistakenly believed that it was only the French who were being targeted and so changed to layman's clothes, but was arrested nonetheless. However, when he denied that he was a priest, they gave him as a slave to a mandarin (ibid., pp. 335–6).

155 The ‘Recueil des persecutions’, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, pp. 249–50.

156 Desfarges, Relation, p. 49. Nogueira, ‘Account’, p. 221, refers to the harassment of the Peguan Christians ‘so that they would abandon their faith’. The anonymous Relation de se qui cest pasé a Louvo, in Smithies (ed.), Witnesses, p. 102, has it that Siamese were left alone but Peguans, Portuguese, English, and French Christians were seized and ‘pillaging, profanation, and rape were conducted with impunity’.

157 The Cochinchinese and Tonkinese Christians (residing in a quarter called Banplahet) in Ayutthaya were not arrested but were punished in other ways: Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 253.

158 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 326–8, describes an English girl who is forced to apostatize and five or six English soldiers who converted to Catholicism in prison. Also see La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 314.

159 Phaulkon had Englishmen in his guard (Martineau, in Documents historiques, I, p. 204), although most sources on the English imprisoned in Lopburi (such as the ‘Recueil des persecutions’, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 251) do not refer to their role, and it seems that the French and English officers arrested with Phaulkon were sent to Thale Chupson: van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, p. 448. Ayutthaya had been at war with the English East India Company since August 1687, but the latter proclamation had been clear that this did not affect Englishmen working in a private capacity: Anderson, John, English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1890), p. 360Google Scholar.

160 Martineau (12 July 1689, Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 204) says that all Christians were rounded up in the end, except the Dutch ‘qui ont repoussé le parti’ (which is unclear). The question of the support given by the Dutch to the plotters is controversial. On Phetracha's favour to the Dutch, see Bhawan, Dutch East India Company, p. 153.

161 This was so even though Phaulkon also had connections to the Japanese community given that his wife, Maria Guyomar de Pinha, was of Japanese blood. Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 315, notes that her mother and the latter's entire family were given as slaves to the captain of the Japanese, which might reflect the fact that, although they were identified as a threat because of the Phaulkon connection, they were primarily identified by their Japanese ethnicity rather than their religion.

162 This is something noted by Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, p. 195.

163 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 284–8, describes it as a kind of house arrest, but they were evidently allowed out and even profited from the protection of their guards; see also La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 323. The anonymous Relation de se qui cest pasé a Louvo, in Smithies (ed.), Witnesses, p. 102, suggests that the Jesuits were left alone because they were lodged in one of the king's houses.

164 The concept of ‘religious diplomacy’ is explored at length in Strathern, Converting Kings.

165 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 284–92, emphasizes their general state of fear and the threats emanating from the court.

166 Ibid., p. 208.

167 Ibid., p. 206 (and cf. Martineau in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 224, referring to accusations of the ‘crime of wanting to destroy their religion’). The reference to the ‘observation’ of the monks indicates, incidentally, a resentment of the Jesuit practice of ‘accommodation’ by residing in the temples and so on.

168 Beauchamp's account in Smithies, Witnesses, p. 64. A clue to the princess's connection with high-ranking monks involved in anti-foreigner politics comes from letter of Fontaney, 12 May 1687, in Tachard, Voyage, pp. 258–9. La Touche, ‘Relation’, p. 314, says that after the death of Phaulkon, Phetracha wanted the complete ruin (la perte totale) of all the Christians in the kingdom, and Véret, in Lingat, ‘Une lettre de Véret’, pp. 349, 352, refers to rumours that all foreigners and Christians were to be massacred.

169 Ruangsilp, Bhawan, ‘Kromluang Yothathep: King Narai's Daughter and Ayutthaya Court Intrigue’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 104 (2016), pp. 95–110Google Scholar.

170 ‘Recueil des persecutions’, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 249; Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 333–4. We can verify that they were working in Phitsanulok, from Phaulkon's letter to the Pope of 4 January 1688 (de Bèze, Mémoire, p. 240). Desfarges, Relation, pp. 48–9, notes that the pair had been intimidated since January, which confirms the point above.

171 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, pp. 302–6. This reflects the great dishonour attached to the soles of the feet. Note also the treatment of Laneau when he visited Bangkok and had his pectoral cross and episcopal ring snatched away by a ‘bunch of barbarians’: ibid., p. 250; Desfarges, Relation, p. 40.

172 ‘Recueil des Persécutions’ MS cited in Forest, Les missionnaires français, III, p. 385. Much of this text is in Launay, Documents historiques, I, pp. 240–61, but not this quotation.

173 Le Blanc, Histoire, I, p. 299. This claim deserves to be treated with some caution given that it would be the ‘icing on the cake’ of a martyrdom narrative. But it is confirmed by other reports, including the Portuguese Novas do Reyno de Siam, in Halikowski-Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, p. 363. A few of the French sources indicate another motive shaping the persecution, which was to create a pool of victims to satiate the sexual appetite of Phetracha's son, Sorasek. However, Phetracha disapproved of this: Le Blanc, Histoire, II, pp. 34–5; Vollant des Verquains, Histoire, pp. 131–2.

174 ‘Recueil des persecutions’, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 255.

175 Ibid., p. 250.

176 On the general inability to convert the Thai population, see Alberts, Tara, Conflict and Conversion. Catholicism in Southeast Asia, c. 1500–c. 1700 (Oxford, 2013), p. 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

177 It must be noted that in many respects, the 1688 affair was foreshadowed by the revolt of the Makassarese community in 1686 and their subsequent destruction. Although this revolt cannot be explored here, it is crucial to note that it coincided with a (Persian) attempt to convert Narai to Islam, and rumours that the Makassarese themselves intended to substitute the king with one of his half-brothers if he converted to Islam. Moreover, involved in the conspiracy was a young Cham prince who came from a kingdom whose monarch had recently been compelled to convert from Buddhism to Islam. On the latter point, see the testimony of La Mare in Michael Smithies, ‘Accounts of the Macassar Revolt, 1686’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 90 (2003), pp. 75–6, and comment of Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, p. 206.

178 Cf. Sri Lankan history over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which resistance to the Portuguese imperial influence was sometimes expressed in anti-Christian terms, while retaining distinctively Buddhist features of identity construction. See, for example, Strathern, Alan, Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Sri Lanka (Cambridge, 2007), p. 212Google Scholar, on Vimaladharmasūriya of Kandy.

179 Forest, Les missionaires français, III, p. 369; Dhiravat ‘Political History’, p. 452.

180 De Bèze, Mémoire, Appendix VII; Letter of Poquet, 27 December 1696, in Launay, Documents historiques, I, p. 332.

181 Hamilton, Alexander, A New Account of the East Indies (Edinburgh, 1727), pp. 164–5Google Scholar. Cf. the picnic episode of 1636, or the French officers who escaped from Thale Chupson in 1688 and took over a monks’ barge.

182 I'm grateful to Chris Baker for bringing these to my attention and sending me images.

183 Maurizio Peleggi, ‘The Turbaned and the Hatted: Figures of Alterity in Early Modern Thai Visual Culture’, in In Anja Eisenbeiss and Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch (eds), Images of Otherness in Medieval and Early Modern Times: Exclusion, Inclusion and Assimilation (Berlin, 2012), pp. 61–2, which also discusses an intriguing cabinet from the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century that may represent the Safavid Shah who had attempted to convert Narai.

184 Paknam, No Na, Wat Khongkharam. Mural Paintings of Thailand Series (Bangkok, 1994), pp. 16, 94–5Google Scholar; and see Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, pp. 164–5.

185 Breazeale, Kennon, ‘The 1731 Edict on Missionary Activities’, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 105 (2017), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

186 Ibid. Indeed, if there is little record of its enforcement, that is essentially because the edicts were mostly irrelevant given the lack of missionary activity. There were some tensions though—for example, arising from the bishop's refusal to allow Christians to participate in an important Buddhist ceremony. Note too that the documentation around the decree shows a concern to maintain friendship with the king of France—once again religious diplomacy had to be balanced against domestic religious policy. For more on hostility to Christianity in the early to mid-eighteenth century, see Trakulhun, ‘Accommodating Buddhism’, p. 143.

187 The third offence noted by the decree was that ‘quite a few Siamese, Mon and Lao were lured away from their own religion through deception, so that they would embrace the Christian religion’.

188 See the discussion of eighteenth-century developments in Smith, ‘State, Community and Ethnicity’, pp. 233–5, 273.

189 Discussed in Strathern, Converting Kings.

190 Baker and Pasuk, History of Ayutthaya, Chapter 5.

191 Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, 2 vols (Yale, 1993), vol. 2Google Scholar; Anthony Reid, ‘Islamization and Christianization in Southeast Asia: The Critical Phase, 1550–1650’, in Anthony Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power, and Belief (Ithaca/London, 1993), pp. 151–79. I do not depend on the language of ‘rationalization’ itself: for the problems and advantages of this term, see Strathern, Unearthly Powers, pp. 64–7.

192 Strathern, Alan, ‘Transcendentalist Intransigence: Why Rulers Rejected Monotheism in Early Modern Southeast Asia and Beyond’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 49, no. 2 (2007), pp. 358–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.