Prince Kromma Muen Thepphiphit (Thai: กรมหมื่นเทพพิพิธ) was a Siamese prince of the Ban Phlu Luang dynasty of the Ayutthaya kingdom. He is known for his colorful adventurous political career.[1]: 208 Prince Thepphiphit led a failed rebellion in 1758 against his half-brother Ekkathat[1]: 208 the last king of Ayutthaya. He was then exiled to Ceylon, which had been under the Kingdom of Kandy. In 1760, local Singhalese nobility conspired to overthrow King Kirti Sri Rajasinha of Kandy to place the Siamese prince Thepphiphit on the Kandyan throne but the plan was thwarted and Thepphiphit had to leave Ceylon. Prince Thepphiphit returned to Siam at Mergui, Tenasserim, in 1762. When the Burmese attacked and conquered Tenasserim in early 1765, Thepphiphit moved to Chanthaburi on Eastern Siamese coast. In 1766, he raised an army in Eastern Siam to fight the Burmese but was defeated. Thepphiphit fled to Nakhon Ratchasima in the northeast where he engaged in a local power struggle, ending up being held hostage at Phimai. At the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, local officials in the northeast declared Thepphiphit a ruler, becoming "Chao Phimai" or the Lord of Phimai as one of several regional regime leaders in aftermath of the collapse of Ayutthaya, entrenching himself at Phimai.[2]: 34 In 1768, the new king Taksin of Thonburi kingdom marched to subjugate Thepphiphit's Phimai regime. Thepphiphit was then captured and deported to Thonburi, where he was eventually executed[3]: 264 in November 1768.
References
edit- ^ a b Ruangsilp, Bhawan (2007). Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayutthaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom, C.1604-1765. Brill.
- ^ Wang, Gungwu (2004). Maritime China in Transition 1750-1850. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
- ^ Baker, Chris; Phongpaichit, Pasuk (2017). A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World. Cambridge University Press.