King Mongkut (Rama IV)

Who is King Mongkut (Rama IV)?

Mongkut, King Rama IV, ruled Siam from 1851 to 1868 after spending 27 years as a Buddhist monk before taking the throne. During his long monastic life he mastered Pali and studied Western languages, mathematics and astronomy, corresponding with foreign missionaries and diplomats. As king he opened Siam to greater engagement with the West, signing the 1855 Bowring Treaty with Britain and similar agreements with other powers, which reshaped Siam's economy and trade while helping to safeguard its sovereignty. A keen scientist, he is famous for accurately predicting the total solar eclipse of 18 August 1868, which he travelled to observe at Wa Ko; he contracted malaria on the expedition and died soon after. He founded the Thammayut reform order within Thai Buddhism. In the West he is often remembered, in heavily fictionalised form, as the monarch in Anna Leonowens's memoirs and the later musical 'The King and I.'

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry 'Mongkut, King of Siam' · David K. Wyatt, 'Thailand: A Short History' (Yale University Press, 2003)