Prajadhipok
Prajadhipok was the last absolute monarch of Siam, and he gave the absolutism up in a morning rather than fight for it. He was the seventy-sixth child of Chulalongkorn and had not expected the throne. He inherited an empty treasury from his brother and then the Depression, which halved the price of rice, the country's only significant export. He cut the budget, cut salaries, dismissed officials and taxed those who remained, which fell hardest on exactly the educated civil and military class that had been growing since his grandfather built the ministries. He knew what was coming. He had a constitution drafted twice and was talked out of granting it both times by a supreme council of princes who told him the country was not ready. On 24 June 1932 a group of about a hundred officers and officials calling themselves the People's Party seized the throne hall, arrested the senior princes and demanded a constitutional monarchy. Prajadhipok was at the seaside palace at Hua Hin with the navy nearby and loyal troops available. He replied that he had always intended to grant a constitution and would accept the demands rather than see Siamese kill one another, and returned to Bangkok to sign. The next three years were an argument over how much of the promise was real. He objected to the People's Party ruling by a half-appointed assembly and to executions without appeal, went to England for eye treatment in 1934, and abdicated from there in March 1935 with a statement that he had given power to the people as a whole and not to any one group. He never returned, and died in Surrey in 1941.
- Lived: 1893 CE – 1941 CE
- Nationality: Thai
- Roles: head_of_state, royalty
