The little sultan: Ahmad Tajuddin II of Brunei, Gerard MacBryan, and Malcolm Macdonald. To know more about the 28th Sultann of Brunei go to this link: thefreelibrary/%22The+little+sultan%22%3A+Ahmad+Tajuddin+II+of+Brunei,+Gerard+MacBryan,...-a0228122203 …….The reasons for Sultan Ahmad Tajuddins neglect are not difficult to find: he was only eleven (just three years older than the boy-king Tutankhamen) when he succeeded to the throne as Yang di-Pertuan on the premature death of his father, Sultan Sir Muhammad Jamalul Alam II, K.C.M.G., at the age of thirty-five on 20 September 19247. While the Sultan was said to have died of malaria, there was no official inquest and it was strongly rumored that he had been poisoned by someone close to him. ………Ahmad Tajuddin did not attain full sovereignty until 19 September 1931 when he was eighteen, and was not crowned until 17 March 1940. During his seven year minority, the two senior wazir, Pengiran Bendahara Pengiran Anak Abdul Rahman and Pengiran Pemancha Pengiran Anak Muhammad Yassin (sometimes referred to as the two wicked uncles) acted as joint Regents and, together with his mother, Paduka Seri Isteri Pengiran Anak Fatimah, reportedly exercised a malign influence over him? Indeed, it was said that they deliberately corrupted him so that they could retain their authority. At the age of thirteen he was given his first gundek, or concubine. (7) His mother reportedly sabotaged British Resident E.E.F. Prettys plans to send him to Malaya or England for his education, (8) although he received English lessons from the age of fourteen from a specially appointed British teacher. His younger brother, Omar All Saifuddin, was later sent to Malay College, Kuala Kangsar, the Eton of the Malay aristocracy, but not without some resistance from his mother. There is little evidence of how Ahmad Tajuddin reacted to his difficult situation, but it was commonly said in Brunei that he was so afraid of being poisoned that he sometimes cooked his own food in soda water.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 04:44:52 +0000