ABSTRACT
In a nutshell, the biography of King Prajadhipok, the first Thai constitutional monarch, can be told as follows. He was born the seventy-sixth child of King Chulalongkorn but the youngest son of his mother on 8 November 1893. His mother, Queen Saowabha-phongsi, was the major queen, and that made Prajadhipok a Prince of the highest celestial rank, a born chao fa. He was educated at Eton and Woolwich, England, and spent three years between 1921–1924 at the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in France. Prajadhipok was a soldier by profession, but a liberal by nature. He married his cousin, Princess Rambai-barni in August 1918 after spending the traditional period of one Buddhist Lent in monkhood. Prince Prajadhipok unexpectedly became the heir-presumptive in early 1925 after the death of his elder brother Prince Asdang. On 26 November of that same year, he ascended the throne on the death of King Vajiravudh. Prajadhipok’s reign is generally well known for two main reasons: it was the last absolute monarch’s reign; and the 24 June 1932 ‘revolution’ which overthrew the Chakri absolute monarchy and replaced it with a constitutional monarchical system. In March 1935, Prajadhipok abdicated, chalking up another record being the first Thai king to do so since 1766. He spent the last years of his life as Prince of Sukhothai in England where he passed away peacefully on 30 May 1942.
