ABSTRACT
The Siamese kingship was reinstated by one of most brilliant generals of previous reign, Phya Taksin, supported by two sons of another dignitary, Bunma (Chao Phraya Surasi) and his elder Thong Duang (Chao Phraya Chakri) after fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. The Buddhist basis of Siamese kingship (which makes the Sovereign a dhamma-raja, reigning according to the dharma) was reaffirmed by the recasting of the legal codes of Ayutthaya into a single code (Kotmai tra sam duang or Three Seals Law, promulgated in 1805) aimed at restoring the original purity of thammasat. Against the establishment of the constitutional monarchy as formulated in January 1885 by a group of 11 members of the Siamese legation in London, including three of his brothers, Chulalongkorn embarked on a process of administrative centralisation. Moreover, even as a new class of functionaries was being built up in the civil service, the civil servants’ social ascension was met with reluctance on the part of the Sovereign.
