King Ramesuan (, ; 1339–1395), son of king Ramathibodi I, reigned as the second and fifth king of the kingdom of Ayutthaya. When King Ramathibodi ascended to the throne of Ayuthaya, he sent King Ramesuan to reign in Lavo. Upon King Ramathibodi's death in 1369, King Ramesuan traveled to Ayutthaya to assume the throne, but held it for less than a year before being deposed by his uncle, King Borommarachathirat I, the ruler of Suphanburi. Sources differ over the nature of their conflict. The official chronicles state that the older Borommarachathirat ruled with the willing consent of his nephew, while Jeremias van Vliet's Short History of Thailand has his accession come only after a bloody conflict bordering on civil war.
Whatever the case, by 1388 King Ramesuan had gathered sufficient support from his power base in Lavo to return to Ayutthaya and challenge Borommarachathirat's 17-year-old son Thong Lan for the throne. King Ramesuan's forces quickly took the palace and executed Thong Lan. Ramesuan then held the throne until 1395, when he was succeeded by his son Rama, also known as Ramrachathirat.
His household conducted its own relations with China while he was out of power. In 1373 the Hongwu Emperor rejected two Siamese embassies at once, one sent for the reigning Borommarachathirat and one on behalf of Ramesuan's mother. In his second reign Ayutthaya sent tribute to the Ming court every year but two.
During Ramesuan's second reign the king seems to have come to an understanding with the kingdom of Sukhothai, against whom Borommarachathirat had warred throughout his reign. Prasert na Nagara reads the friendship pact of Sukhothai inscription 40 as made between a daughter of Li Thai and Ramesuan. Instead, some sources record conflicts with the kingdom of Lan Na (in northern Thailand), and the empire of Angkor. Ayutthaya chronicles indicate that King Ramesuan took Chiang Mai, then the capital of the kingdom of Lan Na, in 1390 and settled many captives within the kingdom of Ayutthaya.
A similar defeat of Angkor is recorded as having taken place in 1393, in response to raids from the Cambodian kingdom. He placed his son on the throne but he was soon assassinated. Neither of these battles are attested to by chronicles from Lan Na or Angkor.
Ancestry
References
Wyatt, David K., Thailand: A Short History, New Haven (Yale University), 2003.