Today marks the centenary of the Birth of King Ananda Mahidol of Thailand, who was born on this day in 1925! The Boy King grew up in Switzerland and was mysteriously found shot dead in his bed six months after his return to Thailand a decade later.
The second child and first son of Prince Mahidol Adulyadej of Songkla, a son of King Rama V, and the commoner Princess Srinagarindra, Prince Ananda Mahidol was born in Heidelberg in Germany and spent some of his childhood in Paris, Lausanne, and the United States while his father studied in Harvard, but the later passed away soon after their return to Thailand in 1929. During the politically unstable period over the 1932 Revolution ended the absolute monarchy in Thailand, the family moved to Lausanne where Prince Mahidol Adulyadej succeeded his uncle, King Prajadhipok, as the eighth King of the Chakri dynasty in 1935, at the age of 9.
In 1938, King Ananda Mahidol visited Siam for the first time as King for a short two-month visit before returned to Switzerland to complete his studies, while Thailand was governed by a Regency during the fractious period of the Second World War, when they were formally allied with Japan but still maintained ties with the Allies. Meanwhile, after being educated at the Ecole Nouvelle de la Suisse Romande, the King was pursuing a doctoral degree in law at the University of Lausanne. The Royal Family invited Thai students over for meals on Saturdays and also had to survive on rations during the War.
Only after the War was King Ananda Mahidol able to return to Thailand, where he had immense support and reverence from the Thai People, despite his own misgivings, which made Lord Mountbatten describe him as:
a frightened, short-sighted boy, his sloping shoulders and thin chest behung with gorgeous diamond-studded decorations, altogether a pathetic and lonely figure. His nervousness increased to such an alarming extent, that I came very close to support him in case he passed out at an official function.
In June 1946, shortly before he was due to return to Switzerland to complete his studies, King Ananda Mahidol was found shot dead in his bedroom in the Boromphiman Throne Hall inside the Grand Palace, shortly after visits from his staff and his younger brother, Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej. Years of trials and investigations failed to establish if the King had committed suicide, been assassinated, or had accidentally shot his gun. King Bhumibol Adulyadej had a record-breaking reign of 70 years before his own death in 2016.
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