Ramathibodi II

Ramathibodi II, born Chettathirat, was king of Ayutthaya from 1491 until his death in 1529, and the Siamese ruler who first dealt with a European power. He was the youngest of the three sons of Trailokanat. In 1485 he was made uparaja, or crown prince, and installed as king of Sukhothai, a title the Ayutthayan heir traditionally held. When his father died in 1488 the throne passed instead to his elder brother Borommaracha III, and only on that brother's death in 1491 did Chettathirat succeed, reuniting the two kingdoms under one crown. The defining event of his reign came from the sea. The Portuguese took Malacca in 1511, a city that had acknowledged Ayutthayan overlordship, and Afonso de Albuquerque sent Duarte Fernandes to Ayutthaya to explain himself and seek friendship. Ramathibodi II chose accommodation over confrontation. A treaty followed in 1516 granting the Portuguese trading rights and residence in Ayutthaya, and in exchange Siam obtained firearms and gunpowder along with Portuguese mercenaries to train troops in their use. He reorganised the kingdom's military administration, ordering a registration of able-bodied men for service that became the basis of Siamese conscription for centuries. He fought long wars with the Lanna kingdom to the north over the Sukhothai lands. He was also a builder, raising the great Wat Phra Si Sanphet inside the palace grounds and casting a standing Buddha figure sheathed in gold for it. The Burmese melted the gold down when they sacked Ayutthaya in 1767. His treaty with Lisbon was the first agreement between a European power and a Southeast Asian kingdom, and it set the pattern the region would follow for a century: trade and weapons accepted, sovereignty retained.

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