"The little sultan": Ahmad Tajuddin II of Brunei, Gerard MacBryan, and Malcolm Macdonald'.

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We anchored opposite the Customs wharf and the Sultan came off to call. His car is a big Lincoln with yellow trappings on roof and radiator. He is 23 years old and quite tiny, wears spectacles, and his hair is much too long behind. (15)

I rode with the Resident from the wharf to the palace in an enormous litter of scarlet and gold carried on the shoulders of about 30 men who staggered drunkenly over the road. The journey was only 200 yards but quite enough. The reception hall was a poor building of wood and iron, again done in scarlet and gold with cheap German rugs of the brightest colours. This jazz effect was heightened by pillars which were done in the colours of the various chiefs, pinks, and blues, and greens, while drawn up on one side was a line of spearmen in bright cherry. We sat and drank orange pop as usual and were given Brunei cigarettes. (16)

He seems a good deal in awe of the Sultan of Selangor [Sir Shenton observed], which is only natural, seeing that he is but a boy head of a small State whereas the Sultan is at least 70 years old, and he is being pestered by the ex-Raja Muda. (17)

Presently the Sultan joined us. His attire acknowledged the Malay love of brilliant colours. In his early thirties, he was slightly built, with an aquiline nose, large humorous eyes and a scanty, rather whimsical moustache. He was not happy about the Japanese invasion. Rather than doing nothing, he became deliberately busy--he gambled, drank and made love, fulltime! ... Before we departed, the Sultan had us examine an old retainer who, worried by events, had been consuming too much Chinese wine. Graham advised him to give up drinking. The Sultan asked, "But why?" Graham faced the matter bravely. He explained how, due to malnutrition, excessive drinking could lead to cirrhosis of the liver. He became graphic in describing this disease, it progressed slowly, with the liver contracting and getting harder and harder, until finally, the blood could not percolate through it and fluid collected in the abdomen. His Highness looked alarmed and patted his faithful retainer on the shoulder. I remarked that the process sometimes took twenty or even thirty years: at this everyone in the room began to breathe more freely. (28)

The Sultan in his heart is deeply dissatisfied, and exemplifies Asiatic opinion generally. He is not by any means such a fool as he may seem to some. His weakness arises out of his sense of utter frustration. I have repeatedly warned the Colonial Office ... about the dangers of the Brunei Treaty to the whole British Commonwealth system in the East. The British Government would do well to realise that my warning was serious. (55)

I have been very ill for a long time and the cause of it has been mental anguish at the way the oilfields of Brunei have been conceded without consideration of myself or my feelings or of the interests of my people. But I have been helpless because of the Treaties ... which have forced me to do whatever I was told in all matters ... My sole desire is that from a financial point of view a reasonable resource should be available to me to relieve the distress and suffering of my own people in the particular way I think right and not in the way that the British Residents and High Commissioners and Agents think right. (60)

Kindly also mention that my daughter has equal rights with the daughter of the King of England to succeed to a throne. (63)

I was very fond of His Highness the Sultan. He was one of the most colourful personages whom I have ever met and we had many interesting times together. I shall always remember his lively personality on future visits to Borneo. (68)

a most charming and excellent man who will make a first class Sultan with his very pro-British feelings[;] in fact he is a very fair man! He takes a real interest in this country, has a great sense of history and I think is as bright as glass, though he is so quietly spoken. (71)

A most charming, intelligent Malay who I believe has been educated outside Brunei, he is quiet and courteous and has great standing amongst his fellows. You always find he is the one who has been elected to organise everything ... (72)

May I be allowed to protest at the action your Majesty's Governor Anthony Abel[l] in Sarawak at having without your Majesty's command approved on behalf of His Majestys Government that a person other than the Sultan's annointed [sic] heir should be proclaimed by the Council of Brunei upon the direction of the local British Resident[.] The rightful heir is Princess Ehsan. (77)

His early life had not been very happy. He had succeeded to the throne when he was very young and two regents had been appointed. According to some well-informed Malays, power was kept out of his hands for years and he was given little chance of preparing for the assumption of royal duties. He was effectively prevented from asserting himself and becoming a personage in his own right. Older members of the Sultanic family dominated him through his youth and into his early manhood.T.S. Monks (1992)Although he lived relatively recently (1913-1950), Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin 11, Brunei's 27th ruler, has been an almost forgotten figure in its history, despite the fact that he pressed for greater political and financial independence for the Sultanate in a way that was in advance of his time. This, together with his advocacy of a new political confederation of northern Borneo under the authority of the Sultanate, anticipated much of the political process beginning in the late 1950s and ending in January 1984 when Brunei's independence from Britain was finally established. Nevertheless, most historians of modern Brunei have until recently ignored his reign in their published work, preferring to focus on that of his younger brother, Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin Ill, better known as the "Seri Begawan." (2) B.A. Hussainmiya in his substantial biography of Sir Omar Ali has thrown some positive light on Ahmad Tajuddin's reign, suggesting tactfully that he "began the movement of regaining royal dignity and sovereignty" with "mixed" success, but at the same time using him to highlight "the magnitude of [Sir Omar Ali's] achievement." (3) The semi-official mythology of Brunei still tends to represent Sir Omar Ali as both rescuing the state from a dissolute ruler and heroically upholding its sovereignty against the British.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]Manipulated by his Political Adviser, the mercurial Gerard MacBryan, privately ridiculed by Britain's wily High Commissioner for Southeast Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, and largely forgotten by posterity, Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin deserves to be looked at afresh. What follows is not a comprehensive and detailed account of his reign, however, but a sketch of its main features which may serve to stimulate further research. While Hussainmiya has given an account of his relations with his Residents and the Colonial Office, a finer analysis is needed. For his own extraordinary role in modern Sarawak and Brunei history, MacBryan himself deserves a dedicated study. Malcolm MacDonald's official role in relation to the Borneo states is well-known but his private perceptions and opinions of Ahmad Tajuddin are only briefly revealed by his biographer, Clyde Sanger. (4)In addition to the relevant sections of Malcolm MacDonald's private journals reproduced as part of the text, a number of historical documents have been appended, namely a Malayan Civil Service official's account of Sultan Abroad Tajuddin's coronation in March 1940 (Appendix I), a British North Borneo official's account of his funeral (Appendix II) and the Brunei court biography (Appendix III).The reasons for Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin's 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.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]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. Pretty's 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. (9)Ahmad Tajuddin's somewhat timid personality also meant that the authority of the British Resident was strengthened and that during his regency and for the first decade of his reign there were no serious crises of the kind that his father, the forceful young Sultan Jamalul Alam, had brought about during the regency set up on his succession in 1906. (10) Jamalul Alam's strong opposition to the new Land Code proposed by the Resident in 1909, which had far-reaching implications for the Kedayan ethnic minority, was only overcome by the application of extreme pressure by the Resident, most notably the threat to depose him. (11) Significantly, as with Ahmad Tajuddin's reliance first on his Malayan private secretary and later on the former Sarawak government officer, Gerard MacBryan, Jamalul Alam's father, Sultan Hashim, had preferred to make use of an outsider--in this case an independent Englishman managing a foreign-owned cutch (mangrove bark) company--rather than rely on his Resident. (12)Ahmad Tajuddin signaled his lack of confidence in Brunei's political system by boycotting most of the meetings of the State Council between 1931 and 1950, apparently in protest against the power of the Resident, (13) and by employing as his private secretary Inche Mohamad Hassan bin Kulop Mohamad from Selangor or Perak. Inche Hassan, subsequently described by an Englishwoman living in Brunet as "very sharp in an oriental way and definitely above average bright," (14) had a good grasp of English and could be relied upon by the Sultan to do his bidding. In October 1931 the Sultan visited Malaya for three weeks and then spent from July 1932 until August 1933 in Britain where he went nominally to improve his English. On 30 April 1934 he married Tengku Rohani (Roihani), daughter of the Sultan of Selangor, Aliuddin Sulaiman Shah, at Klang's Istana Negara, having already fathered three daughters by his principal gundek, known as "Kedayang Emas."In early August 1935, the newly-appointed Commissioner for the Malay States, Sir Shenton Thomas, arrived in Brunet from Singapore on his first official visit and subsequently recorded these impressions:He went on to describe his return visit to the Istana:The Sultan was at that time under considerable pressure from his brother-in-law and former Raja Muda and Sultan of Selangor, Tengku Kelana Jaya Petra, who had recently arrived with two companions and fifteen attendants to take the Tengku Ampuan back to Klang for the birth of her first child:Not only was this proposal contrary to Brunei adat, or custom, that the heir should be born in the state, but might well have been dangerous for the mother traveling at that time of year. It was certainly costly to transport the royal party to Malaya and Sir Shenton consequently advised the Sultan to resist the pressure, promising British Resident of Selangor, Roland Turnbull's, support and writing both to Tengku Kelana and the Sultan of Selangor to explain the situation. Nevertheless, the Selangor family prevailed and in late August the Sultan, Tengku Ampuan and party traveled to the royal capital of Klang where Tengku Norehsani (Tuanku Ehsan) was born on 15 October 1935.Although the details are sketchy, it is clear that by 1936 the Sultan's relations with his Resident were deteriorating. A.V.M. Horton cites Acting High Commissioner A.S. Small writing in June that "[His Highness] is proving rather troublesome that he is now growing up and had acquired taste or power." The Sultan had been involved in "several clashes" with the Resident and Small found it necessary to send to Brunei former Resident E.E.F. Pretty "in order to smoothe matters down." (18) A significant outcome of all this was the decision by the Colonial Office to appoint more senior officials as Residents from that time. (19)In his 13 January 1940 dispatch to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Malcolm MacDonald, informing him of the Sultan's forthcoming berpuspa or coronation on 17 March (which the Resident, J.G. Black, had attempted to postpone and the Sultan had insisted take place ), (20) Sir Shenton remarked that while the latter's conduct during the early years of his reign "was not always correct" and that he had had to be "warned severely more than once," the past five years had passed without any major problems. He might be "irresponsible," Sir Shenton conceded, but he had "no vices." He added: "In considering the past his upbringing must not be forgotten. It is not easy for a young boy, brought up in a remote State and in the atmosphere of a small and sycophantic Court, to withstand the temptation to which as a member of the Royal House he must be subjected." (21) Besides, the Sultan's loyalty had been demonstrated in a tangible way by his offer of Straits $100,000 to the British government for Imperial defense purposes in June 1939. (22) Accordingly, Sir Shenton recommended that he be awarded a K.C.M.G. on the occasion of his coronation. The Sultan was, after all, the only Malay ruler not to have been honored in some way by the British Crown. This was duly agreed, but on the recommendation of the Resident the coronation was attended not by the Commissioner himself, as might have been expected, but by his Private Secretary, Robert Irvine, M.C.S., who provided a report of the proceedings (Appendix I).Very little information is available about Ahmad Tajuddin's role during the Japanese occupation, which commenced on 22 December 1941 with the arrival in Brunei Town of an army unit from Kuala Belait under a Capt. Koyama. (23) It was the policy of the Japanese to keep the Malay rulers of Malaya and Borneo in place as a means of securing the support of their subjects but, like the British under the Resident system, to deny them any real power. As part of the new political configuration of Boruneo Kita (northern Borneo) consisting of Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, the Sultanate, together with what had been the Fourth and Fifth Divisions of Sarawak, made up what was called Mirishu, or Miri province. It had its own military governor who answered to the first military commandant of Boruneo Kita, Marquis Toshinari Maeda. Basing himself at the Brooke Astana in Kuching rather than at Miri, whose oilfields (together with Brunei's recently developed Seria field) accounted for the Japanese interest in the area, Maeda made a visit to Brunei in early 1942 where he and his senior officers were photographed with the Sultan, his brother, and Pengiran Pemancha Pengiran Anak Hj. Mohd. Yasin.During the next three and a half years, Brunei was nominally governed by its Council of State under the direction of the pre-war Government Secretary, Inche Ibrahim bin Mohamad Jahfar. However, he was under constant scrutiny from the resident Japanese provincial governor, based initially in Miri but after April 1942 in Brunei Town, who appears to have acted much as the British Resident had previously done. While the minutes of the Council's proceedings have survived, (24) no historian has so far made use of them to improve our understanding of governance during the occupation period, but it seems that the Sultan's role was increasingly that of a figurehead. (25) The only significant concession made to him was the restoration of the island of Labuan and the Limbang, Lawas and Trusan districts to Brunei's nominal rule as part of Miri-shu. (26) While there is no record of the discussions that the Sultan must have had with the Japanese on this subject, it seems highly likely that it was his initiative. The loss of Labuan and Limbang (the latter being a significant source of tax revenue) had always been a source of bitter resentment in Brunei and it was no accident that after Ahmad Tajuddin's brother, Pangeran Omar Ali, became Sultan, he told the newspapers in Singapore on 4 September 1951 before going on the haj that they should be restored to the Sultanate. (27)With the intensified Allied bombing of oil installations at Miri and Lutong and the machine-gunning of the Istana Mahkota itself in early 1945, the Sultan and his immediate family, together with Pehin Dato Amar Hj. Kasim, retired to Kampong Tentaya, Limbang, and in his absence much of the contents of the Istana, including items of the royal regalia, were plundered. The one description of the Sultan during the Japanese occupation is a vignette penned later by M.C. Clarke, an Australian doctor working in North Borneo before the war who had been allowed by the Japanese to practice without restriction. He was called in with his Canadian colleague, Dr. George Graham, to the Istana Mahkota in early 1943 on the pretext of the Sultan being ill when all he really wanted was some convivial company:The Sultan welcomed the Australian 9th Division liberators with open arms on his return to Brunei Town on 17 June 1945. Received with a Guard of Honour organized by the Australian military commander and taken to the Residency for tea, he quickly availed himself of medical assistance for his asthma before being reinstalled in the Istana Mahkota "in protective custody." Like the Malayan rulers, he was under suspicion of collaborating with the Japanese, but investigations did not lead to any repercussions. (29) Pre-war Resident E.E. Pengilley, who returned briefly in late September after internment, believed that "up to December 1941 he was perfectly and genuinely loyal to the British connection" and that he had played no significant part in the administration of the state under the Japanese. (30) Nevertheless, his political role was once again eclipsed, first by the Australian-controlled British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit (BBCAU) and then by the British Military Administration (BMA) until 1 July 1946 when civilian administration was restored under a new Resident, W.J. Peel. (31) His earlier request to visit India and Britain was politely deferred by BMA Commandant, Col. C.F.C. Macaskie.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]Fortunately for his state of mind, perhaps, the Sultan was unaware of war-time planning in June 1944 by the Colonial Office's Borneo Planning Unit for new treaties imposing the Foreign Jurisdiction Act on Sarawak and Brunei, thus allowing the British government to legislate for Brunei and treat it as part of one administrative unit together with Sarawak and (what would become) the Crown Colony of British North Borneo. (32) Such an arrangement would have practically destroyed what remained of the Sultan's sovereignty and reduced Brunei's constitutional status under British law to that of a protectorate, rather than a protected state, but it was held back by the fact that the Borneo territories and their post-war civil affairs administration came initially within American, and subsequently, by delegated authority, Australian military control. A draft treaty had actually been drawn up by a Colonial Office official in 1944 containing the provision that "His Britannic Majesty shall have full power and jurisdiction within the state of Brunei." The plan was to send out a "special emissary" after the war to "negotiate" this treaty with the Sultan when similar treaties had already been negotiated with the Malayan rulers by Sir Harold MacMichael. (33) Pengilley had indicated to the Colonial Office in December 1945 that he did not anticipate any difficulty with the Sultan about this as he was "a physically insignificant and mentally colourless and inadequate individual" who had been "much addicted to strong drink" and whose morals "left much to be desired." (34)As the 1 July 1946 deadline for the restoration of civilian government in Brunei approached, the Secretary of State for Colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, accepted Malcolm MacDonald's advice that the Sultanate should not be linked with the North Borneo or Sarawak administrations. A return to pre-war arrangements would suffice until such time as the Sultan was apprised that new constitutional changes were being contemplated and that a new treaty would be "presented for consideration with [sic] him [in] due course." (35)In the meantime, the Sultan was showing signs of asserting himself more actively than he had done before the war. In February 1947, just a year after Rajah Vyner Brooke had publicly announced his intention to cede Sarawak to the British Crown, the Sultan protested to the newspapers in Singapore that his traditional rights over Sarawak had been overlooked, if Sarawak had to be ceded to anyone, he emphasized, it should have been to him. (36) Needless to say, Resident W.J. Peel was not with him at the time, or else the embarrassing statement was highly unlikely to have been made. Hussainmiya's suggestion that subsequent Resident E.E.F. Pretty may have "discreetly encouraged" the Sultan in his correspondence with the Secretary of State for Colonies also seems unlikely. (37) Further, there is no evidence of a "softening" in the Colonial Office's attitude to the Sultan or of any invitation to him to attend talks in London. (38)There were other issues than the cession. After liberation, Tajuddin had moved with his consort, Tengku Ampuan Rohani, and their daughters and attendants to a modest bungalow in Brunei Town. During the devastating Allied bombing of Brunei Town in early 1945, the Istana Mahkota at Tumasek Point, which had only been completed in 1932, was seriously damaged and was not habitable. When his continued demands that the British government should build him a new Istana and pay him Straits $64,630 compensation for War Damage fell on unsympathetic ears, the Sultan protested physically by relocating himself in Kuching in mid- 1949, together with the Tengku Ampuan and inche Mohamad Hassan. (39) For the time being, the Sultan's Istana Kechil in Kuching's Rock Road flew the Brunei flag and his car sported the royal pennants. British resistance to his wishes was officially justified in terms of there being more important priorities in the program of post-war reconstruction, notably the hospital and the Residency. The British decision to make the Governor of Sarawak ex officio High Commissioner for Brunei in mid-1947 meant that in Kuching the Sultan was closer to the real seat of power, but he would almost certainly have been seriously affronted by this subordination of the Sultanate to the authority of its former province and by the first steps to unify the administrations of Sarawak and Brunei (the filling of twenty-one Brunei government positions from the Sarawak government establishment). (40)It was only with the greatest difficulty that the Sultan was persuaded by his Kuching friend, Datu Bandar Abang Hi. Mustapha, (41) and by Sarawak's Chief Secretary R.G. Aikman, to attend his own Silver Jubilee celebrations in Brunei on 22 September 1949. Two weeks earlier he had been extremely ill, reputedly from advanced alcoholic poisoning, and had admitted himself to Kuching hospital. He was also unhappy about having to pay for part of the celebrations from his own allowance. Once having returned to Brunei, however, he decided (or was persuaded) to remain in the state, the commencement of work on his new Istana no doubt being the major determining factor.Gerard MacBryanIt was in May 1950 that Gerard Truman Magill MacBryan, who had been Rajah Vyner Brooke's Private Secretary in the late 1920s and again in 1941, made his reappearance in Kuching and persuaded the Sultan to appoint him as his Political Adviser. MacBryan's career in Sarawak had been controversial, even notorious. He had been held responsible for conspiring with Ranee Sylvia Brooke to vary the traditionally male succession in favor of her eldest daughter, Leonora, and of "stacking" the Supreme Council with three newly-created life datu of non-elite origins in order to obtain its agreement. MacBryan's scheme seems to have been premised on his marrying one of the Rajah's three daughters, two of whom (Leonora and Valerie) he is known to have courted, or one of Bertram Brooke's daughters (Anne Brooke) whom he also courted. Although he failed in this, he would have subsequently noted Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin's apparent achievement in 1937 of persuading his wazir to vary the Brunei succession in favor of his own daughter, Tuanku Ehsan. (42)Succession through the female line was not unknown in Borneo, where Puteri Ratna Kesuma, the daughter of the second Sultan, had married an Arab from Tai'f in Saudi Arabia (Syed Sharif Ali Bilfakih), thus enabling him to become the third Sultan ("Sultan Berkat") in 1426. (43) There had been female rulers in their own right in the Malay Muslim kingdoms of Pattani in southern Thailand and in Aceh, Sumatra, where there were no less than four in the seventeenth century. And as we have seen, Ahmad Tajuddin's own mother, the Rajah Isteri, together with the two Regents, had been a de facto ruler in Brunei after the death of her husband, Sultan Jamalul Alam.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]MacBryan made a number of attempts to return to Sarawak, including one in 1935 when he married a beautiful Kuching Malay woman, Sa'erah binte Abdul Kadir, in Singapore by Islamic rites and then claimed to have made the haj, or pilgrimage, with her to Mecca, returning dressed in white Arabian robes (mishlah) and headgear (allegedly presented to him by King Ibn Saud in his new persona of Hj. Abdul Rahman) and looking for all the world like Lawrence of Arabia. (44) However, the hereditary datu protested vigorously to the Rajah against his remaining in the state and he was obliged to return with Hajjah Sa'erah to London where he reportedly worked as a stockbroker in association with his brother and gradually took over the management of their father's private mental hospital at Box, near Bath.Eventually MacBryan persuaded the Rajah to allow him to return in August 1940 to Kuching, where he worked briefly at the Sarawak Museum before being readmitted to the Sarawak Service in January 1941 and appointed Private Secretary. (45) This was part of his reward for brokering a secret financial settlement between the Rajah and his senior bureaucrats, the Committee of Administration, which paved the way for the announcement of a written constitution on 31 March 1941. (46) In December 1940 he had accompanied the Rajah to Brunei on an official visit and subsequently persuaded him that the forthcoming Centenary of Brooke Rule in 1941 was the ideal time to finalize the outstanding claims made by the Sultan and by some of his pengiran for compensation for the loss of their traditional rights in the Limbang district, annexed by Rajah Charles Brooke in 1890. In February 1941 he once again traveled to Brunei in the government yacht, Maimunah, anchoring upstream from the Istana Mahkota. Significantly, he wore the robes and headdress that he had been given in Saudi Arabia. MacBryan was well aware of the high prestige Arabs enjoyed in Borneo, especially if they claimed descent from the Prophet (as they almost invariably did), and of the impression that his attire was likely to make.MacBryan had become familiar with Brunei during his first posting as a government cadet at Limbang in July 1920. In June of the next year he paid a visit, together with the Resident of the Fifth Division, F.F. Boult, to witness the official investiture of Sultan Jamalal Alam with the K.C.M.G. by the then Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Lawrence Guillemard. MacBryan's rapid acquisition of the Malay language, including the archaic courtly version used by the Brunei aristocrats, enabled him to establish good contacts there and to gain some useful insights into the operations of the broken-down Sultanate.Meeting Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin at the Istana and a representative of the Limbang pengiran in February 1941, MacBryan successfully negotiated settlements with them. The Sultan agreed to receive Straits $20,000, subject to Sir Shenton Thomas's approval, in compensation for Sarawak's enjoyment of keraja'an rights (sovereignty) over Limbang for the previous fifty years and to accept Straits $1,000 per annum in perpetuity in consideration of future sovereign rights. A total cash payment of Straits $60,000 was made to Pengiran Sabtu Kamaludin on behalf of the Limbang pengiran for their surrender of tulin, or taxation rights, and they were to receive Straits $6,000 per annum in perpetuity in consideration of future tulin rights. Pensions of Straits $310 per annum were also awarded to certain descendants of Raja Muda Hashim (who had ceded sovereignty of the Sarawak River area to James Brooke in September 1841) and the Sultan's younger brother, Pangeran Muda Omar Ali, was given Straits $2,000 as a wedding present. (47) The arrangements had been made after consultation with the British Resident, Major E.E. Pengilley, in December 1940, but he was now described as at one point running along the river bank chasing the Maimunah, which suggests that he had second thoughts. When the Colonial Office subsequently learned of the payments, it immediately canceled them as transgressing Britain's 1888 treaty with Sarawak. The Sultan was subsequently allowed to receive Straits $6,000 as a Centenary gesture from the Rajah and an annual payment of Straits $1,000. The deed produced by Pengiran Sabtu Kamaludin as the basis of MacBryan's payment of compensation for tulin rights was found to be a forgery. However, he does not appear to have returned the money handed over to him by MacBryan, and consequently the latter's standing in Brunei remained strong.Accompanying the Rajah during his wartime exile in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, for two years, MacBryan provided Australian Naval Intelligence's Captain Roy Kendall with a plan to smuggle Malay and Indonesian students stranded by the war in Arabia and Egypt back to their countries of origin by submarine as a way of obtaining information about the Japanese. Thwarted in his efforts to direct this scheme when his British security record was revealed, he then tried unsuccessfully to interest the then Brisbane-based General Douglas MacArthur in employing him. Returning with the Rajah to Britain in 1943, he subsequently played a key role in the final negotiations with the Colonial Office which led to the Rajah's agreement on 24 October 1945 to cede his sovereignty to the British Crown. One of the conditions stipulated by the Rajah was that MacBryan should be entrusted with the responsibility of obtaining the agreement of Sarawak's Malay and Chinese leaders. Although British Military[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]Intelligence had a thick file on MacBryan, which recorded his evasion of military service in 1940 and his suspicious actions in Dutch Borneo in early 1942 (where he was almost shot as a Japanese spy), the Colonial Office had no choice but to work through him to achieve its ends.In early January 1946, MacBryan arrived unannounced in Kuching. With him he brought a small suitcase of official documents legitimizing the cession through rapidly-arranged meetings of the Supreme Council and Council Negri. He also distributed a large quantity of newly-printed banknotes, purportedly to reimburse the datu for their loss of pay during the Japanese occupation but in fact to secure their compliance with the Rajah's wishes. When this shady deal was exposed in the British press by the Rajah's younger brother and Heir Apparent, Bertram Brooke, the Colonial Office was obliged to go through the proper constitutional processes instead. This culminated in a narrow vote in favor of cession in the Council Negri in Kuching on 15 May 1946, thanks to the support of its official European members, and formal annexation under an Order-in-Council by the British Crown on 1 July. (48)MacBryan spent 1946 and the first half of 1947 in London, when he was subject to mental breakdowns. Believing that by using a mysterious black box he could make himself invisible, he tested his theory on one occasion by taking peaches from a fruit barrow in central London, only to be arrested and fined by a magistrate. Aware of his precarious mental state and the imminent onset of a nervous collapse, he had himself admitted to a mental hospital outside London on at least two occasions. Nevertheless, he continued to offer the Colonial Office his opinions on the future of the Borneo states, suggesting in September 1946 that Brunei be united with Sarawak and claiming that he "could easily persuade [the] present Sultan to cede Brunei to the Crown for this purpose." (49) There was some expectation that he might want to visit Brunei to achieve this end and the Resident was duly warned, but in the event he was to remain in London for the next twelve months.Returning at last to Sarawak on 30 April 1950 from Johannesburg in South Africa, where he had made his home since late 1947 with his third wife, Frances, MacBryan's principal mission was to revive the Sarawak State Trust Fund for the education of young Sarawakians that he had earlier attempted to establish with 1,000,000 [pounds sterling] of Sarawak's remaining state funds. (50) While the Colonial Office in March 1946 had confirmed the intention of creating the Fund, by September 1949 it was saying that it could not be established as there was no legal footing. (51)MacBryan put his case forcefully at meetings with a committee consisting of Sarawak's Attorney-General, Arthur Grattan-Bellew, and other senior government officers, only to find that they stuck to the Colonial Office line. They refused to accede to the request contained in the Rajah's proclamation of 14 January 1946 that 1,000,000 [pounds sterling] be paid from Sarawak's reserve funds to MacBryan to endow the Trust Fund. (52) Thwarted in his ambitious scheme, which he represented as the quid pro quo for the 1946 cession because of the benefits that it would offer young Sarawakians, it was a major setback.Concern about the fate of the Fund had already been responsible for the temporary fits of insanity he had suffered in Johannesburg over the previous two years which had necessitated hospitalization there. (53)MacBryan and the SultanDuring his stay in Kuching, MacBryan was contacted by Enche Hassan, Ahmad Tajuddin's private secretary, and spent some hours talking with the Sultan. "We get on very well together," he wrote to Frances shortly afterwards. "Do you remember I told you how vital I conceived Brunei to be?" (54) The two men had indeed struck up a close rapport and within days MacBryan persuaded the Sultan to appoint him as his Political Adviser on all questions outside Brunei and to help him pursue his constitutional and financial rights in London, on the pretext of seeking medical advice there. Consulted by the Sultan at MacBryan's instigation, Britain's Special High Commissioner for Southeast Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, could raise no objections to MacBryan's appointment: after all, the terms of Brunei's 1905-06 supplementary treaty with Britain only stipulated that "the advice of the British Resident must be taken and acted upon on all questions in Brunei [my emphasis]." In a letter written at the time to the Rajah's personal secretary, Mrs. Evelyn ("Sally") Hussey, whom he had made his confidante, MacBryan outlined what he thought was Ahmad Tajuddin's position:By 1 June 1950, they were installed in Raffles Hotel in Singapore and MacBryan was making arrangements to travel to London by air on l0 June while the Sultan was to sail on the Willem Ruys, together with the Tengku Ampuan, Tuanku Ehsan and Enche Hassan. They were to rendezvous in London and pursue with the Secretary of State for Colonies the issue of Brunei's constitutional relationship with Britain. In the first of four letters, typed and no doubt composed by MacBryan but evidently signed by the Sultan, the latter formally appointed him as his Political Secretary as from l0 June. (56) In a second letter, the Sultan stated that he had pronounced a titah, or royal decree, "irrevocably appointing and anointing" Tuanku Ehsan as his successor and heir, and requesting MacBryan in his capacity as her official guardian to inform the Colonial Office that she was to be known henceforth as Puteri Besar, or Heir Apparent. (57) Tajuddin's younger brother, the Kuala Kangsar-educated Omar Ali Saifuddin, had already been appointed Pengiran Bendahara, or first wazir, in July 1947, an office which fell short of making him Heir Apparent but established him as the most senior member of Brunei's political hierarchy under the Sultan.In a third letter, the Sultan emphasized that Rajah Vyner Brooke had had no right to cede Sarawak, complaining that he himself had not been consulted and claiming that he should be paid the sum of Straits $5,000 (originally 4,000 Spanish dollars) due to him as tribute due on the transfer of Sarawak's sovereignty. (58) He authorized MacBryan to pursue the issue with the Secretary of State for Colonies and promised to let him see a letter to General Carlos Romulo of the Philippines which he had apparently written on the subject. (59)In a fourth letter, the Sultan complained that Brunei's oilfields had been developed to the detriment of himself and his people and he consequently authorized MacBryan to take up the matter with the Secretary of State.The Sultan was still resentful over his treatment by the British authorities in relation to the re-building of his Istana and had not been altogether mollified by an increase in the modest oil royalties paid by the British Malayan Petroleum Co. and an increase in his own salary. Playing on this, and on the Sultan's suggestible nature, MacBryan had evidently persuaded him to take immediate political action. If we are to accept MacBryan's word, Ahmad Tajuddin's planned visit to London was designed to renegotiate Brunei's constitutional status (reducing the power of the Resident) and to place further pressure on British Malayan Petroleum to increase royalty payments by threatening to enter into talks with the Standard Oil Company of America.In a final letter dated 1 June and addressed to MacBryan but once again typed and no doubt composed by him, the Sultan referred to the four previous letters, telling him:In case the British government continued to show "a continued unreasonable attitude in these affairs," he authorized MacBryan to proceed to the United States "as my chosen and personal and political representative" and negotiate an agreement with the President of Standard Oil for the full development of Brunei's oilfields. (61) The American connection was one that MacBryan had been investigating since 1941 when he first approached the United States Consul in Singapore, although it seems unlikely that he had actually made contact with Standard Oil by mid-1950. (62) The Sultan also instructed MacBryan to inform the United Nations of the injustices that Brunei had suffered from the "enforced treaties" with Britain. Finally, he told him:An advertisement to this effect was duly inserted by MacBryan a few days later in Singapore's The Straits Times.To what extent MacBryan was manipulating the Sultan during this brief but eventful time is a difficult question to resolve. The four letters apparently signed by the Sultan on 1 June 1950 were typed by MacBryan on his distinctive portable typewriter and expressed in a way that went far beyond the former's modest command of English. The originals, which should have borne the Sultan's personal yellow seal, have not survived, but their validity was attested to by Singapore's Notary Public on 10 June 1950 and by the Commissioner of Oaths in Johannesburg the following April. However, MacBryan would most likely have had access to the Sultan's personal seal after his death and would easily have been able to concoct and backdate the letters. It would be naive to suggest that he was incapable of forgery, although a forger would probably have moved the date of his formal commencement as Political Adviser from 10 June to 1 June. MacDonald certainly regarded the letters, with the possible exception of the titah, as spurious, but then he had never been inclined to give "the little Sultan" much credit.From what we now know of the Sultan's strained relationship with the Brunei Residents before the war and the issues which preoccupied him after the war, the content of the letters sent by him to the Colonial Office between 1947 and 1949 does not seem to be out of character. "Translated" and typed (and most likely composed) by Enche Hassan, they nevertheless conveyed his genuine concerns in polite but firm terms. (64) The four letters composed and typed by MacBryan should be seen in the same light.It seems likely that MacBryan, too, had quickly come to understand the Sultan's concerns and was able to express them in a way that he approved. MacBryan's own immediate interest was to make himself indispensable to the Sultan, replicating the situation he had created in his earlier role as Private Secretary to Rajah Vyner Brooke. He clearly enjoyed being the eminence gris behind the throne and his fluency in courtly Malay, together with his knowledge of how the Resident system in Brunei worked, meant that he was in a unique position to exercise power. He also appears to have taken over the management of the Sultan's financial affairs, as he had done for Vyner Brooke, no doubt to help secure his influence over him. (65)Beyond this position of power, and the substantial salary that he might expect from the Sultan, however, was MacBryan's evolving grand plan to unite the Muslims of northern Borneo and the southern Philippines in a single political entity under the restored authority of Brunei. The logical first step in this process was to scrap the treaties of 1888 and 1905-06, which bound Brunei to Britain and rendered the sultans virtually impotent, and to improve the Sultanate's share of Brunei's burgeoning oil production.This contingency no doubt alarmed officials at the Colonial Office, concerned as they already were about the Sultan's refusal to communicate through his Resident. As we have seen, he had earlier taken the unprecedented step of writing several letters directly to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, in connection with the rebuilding of the Istana, payment of compensation for War Damage, the funding of his Silver Jubilee celebrations and the increase of his monthly allowance. (66)In any event, Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin suffered a hemorrhage at the Raffles Hotel on the night of 3 June and was taken to the hospital where he died the next morning of kidney failure. He was just thirty-seven years old. While his body was lying in state at the Sultan of Johore's Istana Besar in nearby Johore Bahru, the Tengku Ampuan (whose brother was by then the Sultan of Selangor) vainly attempted to persuade the Singapore authorities that he should be interred at Klang in the burial ground of Selangor royalty.She had to be reminded very firmly that Brunei custom required that his subjects should see his face before he was buried and that not until then could his successor be named. (67) in the meantime, High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald was composing an ambiguous message of condolence to her:The Sultan's funeral ceremony and burial at Brunei took place on 6 June after his body had been flown back on an R.A.F. aircraft to Labuan and brought with full ceremony by royal barge to the Lapau (Court House) in Brunei Town. A detailed description of the proceedings was made by the North Borneo government's official representative, A.M. Grier (Appendix I).The Brunei SuccessionImmediately after the ceremony at the Lapau at 2.30 p.m., British Resident E.E.H. Pretty officially proclaimed Pangeran Omar as Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and the 28th ruler of Brunei. Whether this was in response to a direction from Sarawak's Governor Anthony Abell, in his capacity as High Commissioner for Brunei, or the unanimous resolution of a prior meeting of Brunei's Council of State, is not clear, although both parties were clearly in agreement. Abell's only official responsibility was to confirm the succession under the terms of Article 2 of Britain's 1888 treaty with Brunei. Pretty told Grier after the ceremony that there was some suggestion that in 1937 Tajuddin had forced his wazir to sign a document recognizing his daughter's succession and that surviving pre-war documents proved "that it had always been made clear to the Sultan that only male issue could succeed." (69) For his part, the thirty-five years old Omar Ali Saifuddin happily accepted his new role and quickly asserted his authority by insisting that his late brother be interred at the traditional royal burial ground upriver rather than at Ahmad Tajuddin's own estate four miles out of Brunei, as the Tengku Ampuan had wanted. He also insisted that Tajuddin's face was packed with mud in full view of his subjects before he was interred, in accordance with Brunei custom.Writing to Rajah Vyner Brooke's nephew, Anthony Brooke, from Brunei in March 1950 a few months before these events took place, the part-time journalist and banker's wife Kathleen Clark told him of the unpopularity of Ahmad Tajuddin, who had been given only a few years to live "because of the frightful condition of his liver from various dissipations." (70) Omar Ali Saifuddin, on the other hand, wasSignificantly, she pointed to Pengiran Mohamad, the Wireless Engineer, as the leader of the pro-Omar Ali Saifuddin faction:Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin had left no legitimate male heir, but the supposed 1937 agreement with his wazir and the 1 June 1950 titah meant that it was still open to MacBryan to challenge the legality of Omar Ali Saifuddin's succession and push instead for the installation of the then sixteen years old Tuanku Ehsan as ruler. This he did in a letter to Malcolm MacDonald written on the night of 6 June. At this point, however, he was probably unaware that there was a significant faction in Brunei that was loyal to Tajuddin's wishes and was strongly supported by some members of the Selangor royal family. Indeed, Pretty confessed many years later that he had put Omar Ali Saifuddin on the throne "against significant local opposition." (73) Present at the funeral was Tengku Kelana Jaya Petra, the brother of Tengku Ampuan Rohani, who had been denied the Selangor succession in the mid-1930s by the British and restored to it by the invading Japanese, (74) only to be deprived of it again by the returning British in late 1945. Not surprisingly, he was bitterly anti-British and strongly committed to the cause of his niece, Tuanku Ehsan. Dressed in splendid robes and with his eyelids painted with antimony in the traditional aristocratic style, (75) the flamboyant Tengku Kelana was a temporary rallying point for local opposition to the new sultan. This manifested itself late the following year in critical articles appearing in the Singapore journal Melayu Raya and evidently written by members of a dissident group which included a number of schoolteachers. (76)The morning after Tajuddin's funeral and Omar Ali Saifuddin's proclamation as his successor, MacBryan cabled King George VI from Singapore:MacBryan's plan may well have been to become Tuanku Ehsan's consort and thereby fulfill his grand T.E. Lawrence-style scheme of uniting all the Muslims in Borneo and the southern Philippines under a revived and strengthened Brunei Sultanate. Significantly, he had once again brought with him his Arabian robes and headdress.The Tongkat UlarThe same morning, 7 June, MacBryan held a press conference in Singapore at which he claimed that the planned coronation of Omar Ali Saifuddin would be invalid without the presence of the golden orb and the tongkat ular, which he alleged were parts of the Brunei royal regalia that had come into his possession. (78) According to the Singapore-based Australian journalist, Dennis Warner, who was present, the tongkat ular (snake-headed walking stick or cane) "was simply a length of rattan, perhaps a couple of feet long, with a golden serpent's head and tail." (79) Accusing the British government of depriving Tuanku Ehsan of her throne, MacBryan cited a document signed and sealed by the Sultan appointing him as her guardian until she was enthroned. All this received extensive publicity in the Singapore and British press, with photographs of MacBryan brandishing the tongkat ular. (80) He was further reported as claiming that the late Sultan had shown him how to use the items of regalia "in traditional rites not known to anyone in Brunei." (81)MacBryan managed the same day to see Malcolm MacDonald, who was clearly apprehensive of his ability to stir up controversy in the press and was anxious to restrain him. Predictably, MacBryan stressed the unconstitutional nature of the recent succession proceedings in Brunei, citing the titah signed by Ahmad Tajuddin on 1 June which claimed Tuanku Ehsan as his rightful heir. In order to support his case, MacBryan had brought with him the tongkat ular but he resisted MacDonald's repeated attempts to take possession of it and return it to Brunei. Subsequently, he was canny enough to deposit the two alleged items of regalia with a local bank, so that a search of his room at Raffles Hotel and his lawyer Sir Roland Braddell's offices by Singapore Special Branch or British Intelligence was in vain. (82) MacDonald had refused to countenance MacBryan's claims as to the invalidity of the coronation without the missing regalia, while MacBryan continued to insist that Tuanku Ehsan was "the rightful ruler." in his report to the Secretary of State, Arthur Creech Jones, the High Commissioner told him that this was "a characteristic piece of irresponsibility and foolish interference by MacBryan, whose conversation is pretty wild and shows signs of mental imbalance." (83) He was not overly concerned about MacBryan's intention of visiting Brunei and then going on to London to consult with Creech Jones: "In any case [he added], we presumably need not take this business too seriously, for MacBryan seems so blatantly in the wrong and is moreover such an irresponsible advocate of the case." (84) Nevertheless, the question of the tongkat ular raised a doubt about the legitimacy of the planned coronation of Sultan Omar All Saifuddin.MacBryan in BruneiArriving in Brunei on 11 June, ostensibly to deal with the late Sultan's affairs, MacBryan nevertheless made no attempt to contact the Resident or to meet any Brunei Malay officials. Sarawak's Attorney-General, Arthur Grattan-Bellew, who was visiting Brunei at the time, made a point of seeing him and managed to obtain a "glimpse" of the letters from Ahmad Tajuddin which were the basis of MacBryan's claimed authority. However, he was unsure of their exact contents and whether or not they bore the Sultan's official seal "as MacBryan kept talking to him in a completely incoherent and nonsensical way." (85)MacBryan meanwhile had begun to drink heavily and behave extremely strangely while staying at the Government Rest House, "wandering naked around the verandah" (86) and "conducting thunderstorms." (87) He was heard to pose the question: "Who are the Holy Trinity?", to which he answered: "The Virgin Mary, Princess Elizabeth and Mrs. Hussey." (88) There were other reports of erratic behavior towards his fellow guests at the Rest House and in the bazaar where he pinched the cheek of a Chinese woman drinking coffee before wandering around the town holding a half-filled glass of whiskey, followed by a crowd of curious children. (89) He was consequently certified as "being of unsound mind" by the Brunei State Medical Officer on 17 June and put aboard the next boat to Singapore, the fishing vessel M.V. Tenggiri, for medical treatment there. (90) Locked in his cabin for most of the voyage, MacBryan nevertheless managed to smash down the door, seize the ship's navigational instruments and charts and throw them overboard. (91) On his arrival in Singapore on 22 June, he was detained at the Mental Hospital there until mid-August under an order issued by the colony's Colonial Secretary. Released on the expiry of the order, he announced to the press that he intended going to London within a few days to pursue Tuanku Ehsan's case with the Colonial Office, taking the tongkat ular with him. The Colonial Office was sufficiently concerned at his claims about the missing regalia for Omar All Saifuddin's coronation to be delayed by almost a year until 31 May 1951.Back in London on 21 August, MacBryan tried unsuccessfully to see Colonial Office officials about the succession and consequently seems to have suffered a mental breakdown. There was a story of him trying to direct traffic at Piccadilly Circus and his sister committing him to the mental hospital at Epsom in Surrey, (92) where he had already been a voluntary patient on at least two occasions in 1946 and 1947. On his release, he returned to Johannesburg and on 26 October The Times published a letter from him emphasizing that the late Sultan had been concerned with his "unhappy political plight" and that of his people under the 1905-06 treaty with Britain, which subjected him to the authority of the British Resident in all matters except the Muslim religion. MacBryan claimed that the Sultan had wished to renegotiate Brunei's constitutional arrangements and to form a strategically important "British Bornean Union" with Sarawak and North Borneo, to be underpinned by the revenue from Brunei's oilfields, "the richest in the Commonwealth." (93)From Johannesburg, MacBryan continued to bombard the Colonial Office with letters relating to the Brunei succession and the revision of Brunei's treaties with Britain. However, his dispatch to Brunei's State Council in March 1951 of copies of letters written to him by Rajah Vyner Brooke on 28 June 1946 and by Sultan Abroad Tajuddin on 2 April 1950 was rejected by its President, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, who saw "no useful purpose" in passing them on to the State Council. (94) When MacBryan protested to the Colonial Office that the documents had been withheld from the State Council on the advice of the Resident, a resolution was made by the State Council on 18 April that he be banned from entry to Brunei. (95) Following this, however, MacBryan was able to ascertain from the Colonial Office that it had no objection to his visiting the state. He promptly cabled Malcolm MacDonald in Singapore to confirm that there was no problem in making a visit in order to take legal proceedings against the Resident and make known the "commands, wishes and instructions of the late Yang di-Pertuan." (96)MacBryan was back in London in August 1951, writing to The Times about oil royalties in Sarawak and Brunei but failing once again to meet anyone at the Colonial Office. He appears to have returned to Johannesburg and then set off for Singapore once again before the end of that year with the intention of visiting Sarawak and meeting Governor Anthony Abell in his capacity as High Commissioner for Brunei. (97) In any event, however, he seems not to have visited either Sarawak or Brunei, going on instead to Hong Kong where he died in unexplained and certainly suspicious circumstances in a hotel shortly before Christmas 1953. (98) It seems likely that the failure of his plans to establish the Sarawak Trust Fund and to put Tuanku Ehsan on the Brunei throne had proved too much for his increasingly delicate mental balance. While there is no proof that British Intelligence played any part in his death, there was every reason for the British government to have been relieved at the demise of this brilliant and charismatic man who had the potential to cause serious embarrassment in Brunei and London. Although he had taken the tongkat ular with him on his return to London, it subsequently disappeared and has never been heard of again. Whether it in fact constituted a vital part of the Brunei royal regalia is also a question that has never been settled. (99)There were only the briefest references to Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin in historical writing about Brunei in 1977 when I was completing my doctoral thesis on the cession of Sarawak in 1946 and it was because of this that I wrote to the Palace in Brunei asking if I could be supplied with any information. 1 had encountered the story of the diminutive Sultan during my research on the cession, an event which moved him to protest publicly in February 1947 that his traditional rights over Sarawak had been overlooked: that if Sarawak were to be ceded to anyone, it should be to him. (100) This was a remarkable outburst, particularly in light of the British government's commitment to the official annexation of Sarawak in July, but Tajuddin made his statement to the newspapers in Singapore where he was free from the "advice" of his Resident. What he was seeking, however, was not the resumption of his own sovereign rights over Sarawak but the payment to him by the British government of Straits $5,000 for the transfer of sovereignty, an arrangement that Rajah James Brooke had undertaken with Brunei's governor of Sarawak, Rajah Muda Hashim, in September 1841.I had seen photographs of Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin with the first Japanese governor, Marquis Maeda, and his entourage of officers on their first visit to Brunei in early 1942. I had also learnt something of his relationship with Gerard MacBryan through my acquisition of the latter's private correspondence with his (since deceased) first wife, the Australian, Eva Collins (then living at Nambour in southern Queensland), and his third wife, Frances Benn (then living near Warminster in Wiltshire).[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]My request for information about Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin of II October 1976 finally resulted in a letter from Datin M.E. Lloyd-Dolbey, then Personal Secretary to Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, of 6 September 1977, enclosing a nine-page typescript which is reproduced below (Appendix III). To all intents and purposes, it is an official biography and appears to have been written by one of the Sultan's Bruneian officials. While the information it contains appears to be factually accurate as far as it goes, it reveals very little of Abroad Tajuddin's personality and character and of the problems he faced.The foremost authority on these subjects was Britain's High Commissioner for South-East Asia, Malcolm MacDonald, who was based in Singapore from 1946 until 1955 and was a frequent visitor to Borneo. His official dispatches to the Secretary of State for Colonies on Brunei during those years were shrewd and informative but gave very little indication of his personal reactions. While he was an urbane and canny diplomat, Macdonald also had a sharp eye and an even sharper pen when it came to recording his personal impressions of the leading personalities with whom he came in contact. Although his journal entries were essentially private writings, they were self-conscious productions that were probably intended for publication at some later time. MacDonald was no doubt familiar with W. Somerset Maugham's Malayan and Borneo short stories and his writing closely imitated Maugham's acerbic style.Some of MacDonald's descriptions of personalities, notably of Sultan Abroad Tajuddin, were scurrilous in the extreme and this explains why his journals were apparently "vetted" by an employee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after his death and some time after their removal from the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society in Burlington Avenue, London, to Durham University where MacDonald had been Chancellor and where his other papers were deposited. I noticed the "vetting" when I found that the journals in Durham were not in sequence and had some obvious gaps, including some pages which I had earlier photocopied when they were held at Burlington Avenue. As there had been a limit to the amount of photocopying allowed there (10% of the original), ! had not managed to copy all the Brunei references, but the copies I managed to make, together with some further copying at Durham, meant that i had a fairly good coverage of MacDonald's impressions of Brunei. A quick perusal of his typescript autobiography, "Constant Surprise," also held at Durham University Library, revealed it to be a bland "official" account of his public career which in no way reflected the mordant Maugham-like persona of his private journals. His memoir, Borneo People (1956), (101) was an affectionate and highly readable account of many of the people whom he had met there. Most prominent in these stories was Sarawak, where he frequently visited Paramount Chief Temenggong Koh's Baleh longhouse on the upper reaches of the Rejang river by flying boat and where persistent rumors linked him romantically with one of Koh's daughters. When it came to the point, however, he was unwilling to commit his less benign thoughts to print.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]What do the incomplete private journals reveal? (102) MacDonald made his first visit to Brunei in mid-July 1946 (the basis of the first two accounts reproduced below) and was there once again for the Sultan's Silver Jubilee celebrations in September 1949.His last meeting with the Sultan was in Singapore in late May 1950 when the latter was en route to London, but MacDonald visited Brunei again in May 1951 for the coronation of his younger brother, Omar Ali Saifuddin.July 16 [1946]Voyaged overnight on Alacrity to Suka Point on Muara Island, where we arrived at 7.45 this morning. Thence by Higgins' launch into the Brunei River, where we were met by two Government launches bearing the Sultan, some of his daughters and the Resident ([John] Peel). The Sultan came on board to greet me. He stands less than five feet high and has a face as weak as his character. From youth he has abandoned himself to wine, women and perhaps (in occasional hiccoughy snatches) song. It is not necessarily his fault. He is a badly brought up, and spoilt and (under the encouragement, I am told, of his mother) debauched princeling. He succeeded to his Sultan's throne when a minor, and is now 33 years old and in the 22nd year of his reign. When he succeeded it was the custom that the new Sultan inherit the harem of his predecessor. As there had been a succession of short-lived Sultans (some of them succumbing to the effects of deliberately administered poison) before this boy came to the throne, the accumulated harem had reached considerable proportions. I believe it contained seventy women. This would not have deterred the young Sultan, but it seemed objectionable to the British resident of the day ([Eric] Pretty, now in Johore). He decided that the time and opportunity had come to ration His Highness as regards wives. He took action accordingly. I must ask Pretty for the exact details of this interesting piece of Brunei history.Whatever the ration that Pretty fixed, the Sultan indulged his appetite for women, and drink, to excess. I believe his excesses are of quality as well as quantity. He is a degenerate. Again, it was not wholly his fault, for apart from physical, mental and moral defects due to heredity, his mother provided him with an undesirable environment. She encouraged him to enjoy the company of women and to spend most of the time enjoying it. Her influence was against his taking his responsibilities as a Ruler seriously. His education was gravely neglected in all matters except those concerning the bed-chamber. Then he was suddenly sent to England for a little schooling; too sudden and erratic a change for an inexperienced and weak-witted minor Asiatic Sultan. His principal impression of Britain is the splendour of the G leneagles Golf Course Hotel.He was officially married to the daughter of the late Sultan of Selangor. He has treated her brutally and tyrannically. She never appears outside his house and few people seem to have seen her in it. i have heard some story about her being kept in a cage part of the time. His other wives are not officially married to him, but to his spear, his kriss [sic] and other parts of his possessions, according to some ancient Brunei custom. This fine distinction in theory makes no difference in practice.This was the half-grown little ruler of Brunei who greeted me on the Brunei River a few miles below his capital this morning. His black hair has a circular shaved patch on the back of his crown; his pop-eyes are concealed behind large, dark glasses; his moustache consists of a few long, curley whisps of black hair doing their best to look like a bushy cavalry moustache; his beard is even more ludicrously inadequate and absurd (consisting of about eight individual, unrelated, long, straggley black hairs); and his other features in keeping with these weak points. This morning he wore a musical-comedy uniform--a black peaked hat like a glorified London bus-driver's head-gear; a tunic of dark blue and silver fitted to his waist by a silver metal belt; blue breeches cut like riding breeches; and black top-boots. A couple of medals (those of the Jubilee and the Coronation) and the insignia of his C.M.G. strung round his neck completed the dress of this comic and sinister little personage.Accompanying him were three of his daughters, two by 'unofficial' wives and the third by his official spouse. She is the youngest, looking about eight years old. They are young, dark-eyed girls with Malay features and beauty. But the youngest has wild, bad-tempered eyes.He and his young relatives betook themselves from my launch into another and preceded me up river to Brunei town ...[pages missing]... and other Englishmen who in days of yore had adventured to these same parts, bent upon business with the notorious Sultan of Brunei. It was pleasant to feel that the place wore almost the same aspect now as it did in their time, that perhaps no corner of the world had changed less in century, and that my eyes were to gaze upon much the same scenes and spectacles as strange as those which greeted them ...This was swiftly contained when we sailed into the river. Two small, trim launches approached us, and then stopped and hailed us. In one was Mr. John Peel, the British Resident of Brunei, immaculate in a white suit and topee, as befitted an able young representative of the old British Raj which is gradually disappearing from the East. In the other was the reigning Sultan of Brunei, accompanied by members of his family.Our craft halted in mid-stream and the Resident and Royalties came aboard with smiles and words of friendly welcome. This gave me my initial opportunity to study the appearance of His Highness. I had been led to expect an extraordinary sight, but nothing so astonishing, so incredible as this. I could scarcely believe my eyes. I pinched myself to make sure that I was not dreaming. I had to discipline myself, to make sure that I did not stare in too rude wonderment. And that I did not burst into peals of merry laughter.The Sultan was not a midget, but he was not very far from that. He measured 4 feet 8 inches high. Nevertheless, his various parts were well made, all in good proportion with the others. And his figure was like that of a neat little boy of pre-school age.His face, however, bore a somewhat different character. He was adult, and eloquent of awful weakness and (should I say?) degeneracy. His skin was pale for a Malay potentate, but his hair was as black as pitch. Like smooth, polished ebony, it was brushed straight back from his boney forehead, and parted on the crown to reveal a shaved circular patch of bare pate. His dark, glistening eyes bulged too much from their sockets, an unhealthy effect accentuated by the lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacle. His nose had a delicate, yet sensuous, curve, and large, ugly mouth was grossly full-lipped. His cheeks and most of his jaw were hairless, but above his upper lip some skimpy, curling whisps of black hair did their best to simulate a bushy cavalry moustache. Whilst less than dozen long, apparently unrelated, straggley hairs sprouted from his chin appeared like a ludicrously plucked and despoiled head of a worn-out Chinese sage.In his eyes was a vague, dissolute look.His costume was colourful, if incongruous. One of His Highnesses [sic] idiosyncracies was a passion for designing odd uniforms for himself. On this occasion his dress seemed best suited for the head chauffeur of some Austrian princeling in far-fetched musical comedy set in the Tyrolean Alps. His hat was shaped like a bus-driver's, with broad shiney black peak. His tunic was of dark blue, with silver lapels, cuffs and buttons. Its wasp-waist was clasped within a silver-metal belt. His trousers sported a different shade of blue, and were cut like particularly vulgar riding-breeches. His legs and feet were enclosed in black patent leather top-boots. A couple of beribboned medals oil his bosom and the bauble of the C.M.G. strung around his neck completed the make-up of this comic personage.With him were a quartette [sic] of daughters. Sons had he none; but those four young females he begot by various mothers. A Moslem monarch. There was no particular limit to number of ladies whom he might sire. One was his official wife, enjoying the title of Tungku Ampuan, a Sultan's daughter from the Unfederated Malay States. The others were, by some strange, ancient, hallowed Malay fiction, married to his principal weapons of war and the chase his spear, his kris and the rest. The marital rights, however, were exercised wholly by His Highness.Some of these women were the mothers of his three eldest daughters, who all gloried in the title Belabub. There was the Belabub Besar, or Big Belabub; the Belabub [blank] or middle one, and the Belabub Damit, or small Belabub--like the three bears in the fairy story of Goldilocks. The Sultan's youngest daughter was the legitimate offspring of himself and his wife, and she therefore was a fully-fledged royal princess who took precedence over her older half-sisters.At the time when I first met them the Belabub Besar was a girl of seventeen summers. and the Princess Esah [Ehsan] was a child of nine. The other pair of girls were distributed in age somewhere between the two. They were a pretty quartette, black haired, dark eyed, brown skinned, sweetly featured, and dressed in brightly coloured, flower patterned bajus and sarongs.Yet they betrayed already their breeding. The eldest girl in particular had the gay, roving eye, the unabashed, inviting smile and the abandoned swing of the hips of a young lady who is no better than she ought to be. The two younger Belabubs had no such blatant style, and seemed innocently virgin yet they had an air of being natural, untamed and free, like jungle animals. The princess, as I have said, was still a mere child; but a selfish, imperious look in her eyes revealed that she was a true descendant of a long line of Brunei Sultans.Brunei 3The Sultan's Silver Jubilee fell on September 20th 1949.On the previous day I took wing from Singapore, to attend the celebrations. My 'plane landed in Kuching, not only to take on more fuel to complete the flight to Brunei, but also to take on the Sultan and transport him to his Jubilee. He had been staying some time in his house in Kuching. Without him on this auspicious occasion the ceremonies in his state would indeed be a performance of 'Hamlet' without the Prince of Denmark.However, when we landed on Kuching airfield he was nowhere to be seen. Nor were the officers of Government who should have been there to greet me and to speed me on my way. Instead an apologetic telephone message from [Chief Secretary] Gordon Aikman awaited me, explaining that the Sultan and the Tungku [sic] Ampuan (who was with him) were in ill-humour and were at the moment resisting the suggestion that they should go to Brunei, and that I might have to delay my onward passage whilst the process of persuasion were [sic] completed.Whilst I waited I heard from an acquaintance of the events of the last few weeks. The Sultan had taken up residence in Kuching some time ago. He was in casual, happy-go-lucky mood. He complained of his health, and eventually took to his bed. For ten days no-one was allowed near him in his bedroom, where he apparently led the life of an invalid recluse, receiving no visitors, doing no work and declining contact with the outside world. Enquiries of his staff elicited the reply that he was feeling a bit under the weather, and was resting.Suddenly one morning the doctor in the hospital received an urgent telephone call, saying that His Highness felt seriously ill, that he wished to stay for a while in the hospital, and that he had already entered his car and was on the way.The royal patient arrived a few minutes later. The doctor had only to glance at him to diagnose his complaint. He looked in terrible condition, and was in a highly exciteable state. He complained that he could not remain at his own residence, because the children there made so much noise, yelling and laughing all day long. The doctor knew that there were no children whatever in the house. Later, when His Highness was undressed and in bed in a private ward, he complained to the nurse of the bells that kept ringing in the corridor outside his door. Could someone stop their continuous tintinabulations?There was in fact no bell anywhere within ear-shot. The ward was perfectly silent. His Highness's peace of mind was assailed not by noises, but by the preliminary signs and portents of a vicious attack of 'delirium tremens'.The doctor visited the Sultan's residence, to discover what was the particular source of this indisposition. There he learnt that in the room which His Highness had occupied alone for the last ten days there were 423 empty beer bottles. It seemed therefore on average that the little man had been consuming 42 bottles per day. This seemed sufficient explanation of his physical condition.It was now within two or three weeks of the Jubilee, in which the Sultan was to be the principal actor. The doctor and nurses did a thorough job with him, and restored him to a presentable condition in time for the great event. But the recovery was superficial; His Highness' fundamental condition was serious; the royal kidneys were gradually breaking down under the strain which they had borne for many years.The doctor made no secret of this to His Highness, and gave him a sharp warning of the danger. He calculated that at his present rate of deterioration the little Sultan had only between six months and eighteen months to live.His Highness was therefore inclined to lose interest in life. He began to regard with indifference the vain pomp and glory of this world. At any rate he thought that to give a few days to the ceremonial of his Jubilee was to devote too large a share of the time remaining to him to futile vanity. If life was now to be short, let it at least be merry. Let its cup be filled to the brim with joy. Let him drink it to the very dregs and if perchance time permitted, let it be refilled again and yet again. He would savour its taste fervently, Praise to be Allah! And salaams to Bacchus too! Cheerio, chin-chin! Here's mud in your eye. No heeltaps! He did not wish the cup to be dashed even briefly from his lips by the nonsensical, mundane official tomfoolery of a reign which was in any case drawing rapidly to a close.He declared that he would not go to Brunei for the Jubilee. His wife, who abhorred all public appearances, encouraged him in his opposition. They both dug their toes in.Hence my delay on the airfield at Kuching. My travelling companions and I waited more than an hour whilst a tremendous argument took place in the royal residence. Aikman urged that the Sultan must grace his Silver Jubilee with his presence. His Highness averred that he was too ill to travel.Eventually we, on the airfield, saw a little cavalcade of motor cars approaching us. On the bonnet of the leading car we spied the royal flag of Brunei, fluttering bravely in the breeze. Then within the car we recognised the dark goggles of the Sultan's sunglasses perched on his thin, pale face. So Aikman had won. Hamlet was after all to make a personal appearance in the leading role in the week's drama.When the Sultan stepped out of the car, I saw the ravages of illness on his person. His body seemed to have grown smaller than ever. He was shrivelling up. His face appeared haggard and its colour was bad. The wings of the angel of death did indeed seem to be brushing his hollow cheek.He walked towards us like a man in a trance. Then, as we shook hands, his lack-lustre eyes brightened with sudden recognition. He gave me a wan smile, and for a brief moment a mischievous sparkle lit his eyes, as if he and I were fellow-conspirators in some dark plot. It dissolved as quickly as it had formed and he turned away mechanically to ascend the steps into the jaws of the waiting aeroplane.The Tungku Ampuan looked sour. She evidently regarded with extreme distaste our expedition.But there was no turning back now. The aeroplane's doors closed sternly behind us. A few minutes later we were poised in position to start at the end of the runway. Then the propellers buzzed into violent activity, the machine raced madly along the ground, and with its inmates were hurled like pebbles from a catapult into the air.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]The next morning broke fair, after a night of rain. There was a freshness in the air, and a slight breeze blew, bringing welcome hints of coolness to us ...[pages missing]... the Sultan mounting the steps. There, on the threshold of the hall, he was met by the Penghiran [sic] Bendahara and the Pengiran Pemancha, who bowed solemnly to him, With his consort he walked with stately pace along the carpet towards the dais. The whole audience rose in salutation.The interior of the pavilion was tastefully decorated with flags and bunting, sprays of foliage and bouquets of flowers. But its most beautiful [sight] was the many coloured costumes worn by some of the distinguished people in it. [C.W.] Dawson [Acting Chief Secretary of Sarawak] and I contributed little to the array, striking a sober note in the white drill and gold braid of the sartorial adornment of tropical Governors. But the leading Malays in particular indulged in an orgy of colour which lent the scene a sparkling brilliance.I have already mentioned that the Sultan himself was clad in a rich regal Malay dress of emerald green silk and gold thread, its stuff was of the finest shimmering and glittering quality. Possibly the complete dignity of his appearance was a little marred by the fact that he wore his crown at a slightly rakish tilt; yet this seemed to be charmingly in character. Moreover, it was more the crown's fault than this. The crown was too tight, not the Sultan. The head measurements which had been sent to the Goldsmiths Company to ensure an exactly fitting crown omitted to mention the fact that space should be allowed for a cloth skull-cap to be inserted between the circle of metal and the Sultan's skin. The net result was that the crown was too small; and His Highness had to wedge it over his forehead at a slight angle in order to prevent it from rolling off.As I have also mentioned before, the Sultana was dressed that day in dark blue and gold, with yellow and gold scarf around her shoulders. The Penghiran Bendahara wore a magnificent suit of oyster and gold from the tip of his turban to the toes of his slippers. It had been especially woven for the occasion by his young wife. The Belabub Besar did not attend the ceremony, having fallen into disgrace as the result of some joyous escapade scarcely in keeping with the status of a married woman; but her two pretty sisters, the Belabub Lua and the Belabub Daunit, were sitting side by side in the front row. The former dressed in Cambridge blue and the latter in Oxford blue, each with a flowered pattern of gold on the silk. The Penghulu Pemancha was in a white uniform and wore a pork-pie hat with almost as many colours in its make-up as graced Jacob's coat. The Penghiran Mohamed had on a black velvet cap, dark brown baju and trousers and a purple and gold sarong. Inche Hassan, on the other hand, wore a pink baju and trousers offset by a white and gold turban and sarong. The Orang Kaya de-Gadong [sic] sported a red and gold turban and sarong over his white uniform. Several Hajis wore many-hued turbans and long, close-fitting, grey or brown 'frock-coats' which often distinguish those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Other Muslim personalities were clad in costumes of varied shades; the Chinese towkays came in black and white; and the Iban chieftains from up-country enlivened the show with caps of fur or feather, loin cloths of bizarre designs and, for the rest, gleaming brown flesh decoratively spattered with blue tattoo.[pages missing]... utterly exhausted at the winning post; the rest of my crew seemed completely fresh, and gave loud war- whoops of triumph.A tea-party in the Residency garden followed. Amongst the large company were the Sultan and his four daughters. An even more interesting arrival was his mother. I already knew her astonishing and sinister reputation and looked at her with curiosity as we all sat down at a table to eat cakes and sip tea.She appeared to be an affable old lady, gentle and dignified. He small, slight frail figure seemed the incarnation of feminine weakness, and her serene, wrinkled face and trim grey hair had perfect air of ladylike gentility. Could this be (1 thought) the notorious regent, the cold-blooded tyrant, the unnatural mother of the scandalous tales which had circulated in the region? It seemed strange--although her smile, if gracious and sweet, was at the same time a trifle enigmatic. Perhaps the secret lay in her eyes. Occasionally they betrayed a quality in contradiction to the rest of her appearance. They had an imperious glance, cold, calculating and selfish. Then the embers of some fire within her glowed through them, and I felt instinctively that they could kindle easily into passionate fury and hate.Noticing the fine, long deft fingers on her delicate hands, I realised that they had probably not lost their cunning. If the whispered insinuations of her enemies were true, these beautiful claws had dabbled in poison. Perhaps even now--if she felt so disposed--she could slip by some incredible, invisible sleight-of-hand grains of fatal powder into my tea. I looked at my cup and saucer, but they appeared untampered with. The fact that I am still alive to tell this tale is no doubt proof that she was innocent of guile that sunny afternoon. Perhaps in nay case the darkest rumours spread about her past conduct were the idle, scandalous inventions of disgruntled courtiers. But I felt as if I were privileged to sit at table with an aged, two clawed Imperial dragon on its best behaviour.I shall have more to write about her in due course.As we sipped our tea and toyed with cakes we chatted about this and that. The Sultan understood a certain amount of English, but lacked confidence to speak it. John Peel acted as interpreter between us. His Highness was extremely talkative. He spoke of the miseries which he and his people suffered under Japanese rule. And of their joy at the return to Brunei of their British protectors and friends. He made sly, ingratiating, flattering remarks about my visit, with some kind and courtly phrases which warmed my heart towards him. They indicated a certain sense of diplomatic nicety in him, which no doubt sprang from impulses little more than skin-deep, but which was none-the-less engaging in a rascally, Oriental sort of way for that. I liked his artful quality. Frequently his smooth words were accompanied by a wistful, boyish smile of what appeared to be sincere friendship. Moreover his utterance occasionally showed a pretty turn of humour. His smile would then break into a healthy laugh, the sounds of which contained mischievous, hilarious notes.The ladies took no oral part in the conversation. Moslem women are usually silent in the presence of strangers. But they spoke plenty with their eyes. The Sultan's mother gazed upon us with kindly yet lofty tolerance, as an all-wise, well-mannered elder does when compelled to listen to the chatter of half-witted children. The Belabub Besar rolled her huge, sultry eyes at me with the frank, familiar come-hither stare of a street walker at dusk in Piccadilly Circus. The two little Belabubs ogled and simpered like a couple of shy but rather sophisticated children; whilst the princess kept shooting towards me glances charged with bored and bad-tempered resentment.The Sultan did not seem to be wildly enthusiastic about the tea. In fact he left a full, steaming cup of it untasted. Every now and then his hand moved instinctively towards the cup, but at the first contact with this unfamiliar object it drifted vacantly away again, whilst His Highness's eyes roved a trifle wildly in vain search of other refreshment.As soon as he finally abandoned hope of any such sustenance coming to his rescue he rose, stretched out his hand to mine, bowed so low that you saw the tonsured circle, like a small full moon on the top of his head, and took leave. His mother and daughters followed him like a drove of hinds and fawns silently attending a royal stag.I dined early at the Residency, for the reveling [sic] that day was a nonstop performance and would continue throughout the evening on the padang in the town. Immediately after the meal the Sultan called to take me to it. He was dressed now in faultless tail-coat, white waistcoat and the suitable accompanying garments. Round the neck of his boiled shirt dangled the ribbon and accolade of a Companion of the Noble Order of the British Empire, and on the lapel of his coat hung the two little medals which he had gained on the battlegrounds which were so hotly contested when authority had to decide who should get Jubilee and Coronation medals. He looked much too small and--in spite of his incredible pretence at a moustache and beard young for this adult garb and finery, like some prodigious child conjurer dressed up for a Command Performance.His eyes shone with gaiety. If there was just hint of glassiness in their glitter, it was of no account. No doubt he had been making up for the lack, at the afternoon tea party, of beverage to his taste, but he had done this wisely, not too well. He was in natural, spontaneous high spirits. Almost every sentence which he spoke twinkled with jest, and every now and again he gave a hilarious laugh. He was like a boisterous youngster, a child who had never properly grown up. I felt a strange sympathy for him, a sadness at this rather charming yet pathetic royal figure who seemed somehow so untrained to the responsibilities and dignities of rule.We motored to the town. The night was dark, but heaven's high vault was brilliantly lit with the candles of ...[pages missing]The presence of the Sultan and two of the Belabubs was a remarkable innovation. Before the war the attendance of females at such a function would have been unthinkable. But in some respects, even in conservative Brunet, ancient custom was breaking down. Amongst others, the strict taboo against women in such public social gatherings was loosening its hold. Its power had not completely disappeared. Much argument had preceded the attendance of the Sultan's ladies, and although in their case this act of emancipation was urged and permitted, in other cases the old restraint had prevailed. For example, the Penghiran [sic] Bendahara had pleaded with his wife to come to the Jubilee celebrations; but she obstinately refused, on the grounds of impropriety. Other wives and daughters also had to stay away.The Sultan's old nurse, however, had cast her vote for the new custom, and came to witness the ceremony. This withered hag occupied a place of honour, squatting on the floor close beside the throne. With her were two other aged and ugly harpies. Clad in dirty clothes with unkempt grey hairs and wrinkled, toothless faces, they looked like the three witches from 'Macbeth'. It was as if that infamous trio had met round their cauldron on the blasted heath near Forres, mixed a vile concoction of obscene spells and drams, and after chanting, 'Where shall we three meet again?' decided on Brunet as the site of their next tryst.Certain well known local characters were however, positively refused admittance to the audience. They were the Evil Spirits who, unless forbidden, were apt to haunt and spoil pleasant sociable gatherings in Borneo. Ancient custom decreed how they could be prevented from attendance. In the middle of the red-carpeted aisle through the centre of the audience was propped a strange-looking object like a large model of Neptune's trident. On the end of its long wooden shaft was set threateningly a three-pronged fork, worthy to be in the armoury of some horrific torture chamber. This weapon was a warning to all ill-disposed Spirits to keep away. If they intruded, they would be impaled upon these sharp and twisted spikes.That was why the ceremony passed off without any untoward incident.The Sultan and Sultanah advanced with regal tread to their thrones on the dais. These pieces of furniture were as much like bits of stage property for an amateur theatrical performance as were their swords, shields and lances of the Royal Bodyguard. They had been knocked together, planed and chiseled a few days earlier out of some common planks, and the black and gold paint on them still smelt fresh. They stood under a domed canopy also newly fashioned of painted wood, with an embroidered ceiling, silk side-hangings and a carpeted floor. On either side of the thrones, stood a large, shining, brass Brunei cannon.When the Sultan and Sultanah reached this bower and seated themselves, the audience also sat down. Then an expectant hush was shattered by the Royal Orchestra, which broke into an astonishing musical shindy. The half-dozen solemn performers crowded on the floor near the thrones, lugging their instruments. These consisted of three ancient drums of stretched snake-skin, two colossal gongs and a wood-wind instrument with the wide mouth of trumpet. They thumped, crashed and wailed at the tops of their voices all together and at what seemed to be interminable length.They would have continued indefinitely, if ancient custom had been observed. The uproar of this orchestra on special occasions is supposed to have had semi-sacred imports, and the longer it lasts the more virtue it imparts to a ceremony. However, the Sultan did not, apparently, share that view. It was only with the greatest difficulty that he was persuaded to allow his trusty bandsmen to take any part in the proceedings at all. He could not abide them. To borrow a descriptive expression, he hated their guts, and their drums, gongs and flute as well.I could not blame him. In accordance with time-honoured tradition, they had been playing continuously, with scarcely pause to draw breath, all the previous day, half the night, and all that morning They started in a room next to his living room. He cursed the infernal noise, and commanded silence; only to be told that ill luck would dog his Jubilee if it were not accompanied by this customary music. He almost went insane. After a while--unable to strangle them--he dismissed them to the verandah, then to the lawn outside and finally to an out-house beyond the lawn. So great was their prowess with wind and fist that even from there faint, maddening strains of their hullaballoo irritated the royal ear. The Sultan declared that he never wanted to hear another peep or squeak from them, and ordered that their performance should be struck from the programme prepared for the Jubilee Pavilion.Once more the pundits pointed out to him that this would presage some awful disaster ...May 30 1952Sultan of Brunei lunched with me at Bukit Serene [the High Commissioner's official residence] today. He is on his way to England, to pay his respects to the King and thank him for his 'K' [knighthood]. I wonder whether he will ever get there. He looks like a doomed man to me, much thinner, weaker, frailer than at his jubilee. His head seems narrower, his flesh thinner (almost nothing beneath the skin), his eyes with death in them.He was sober and rather silent, not lacking in dignity except to those awful, bulgy, telltale eyes and a general sense of a living corpse, a human body where decomposition has started before death has claimed it. But he talks in spasms. He drank whiskey-and-soda. Before lunch he drank three-quarters of a tumbler full, and then hesitated over the rest. Tunku Mahkota, who was a fellow guest, told him to swallow it so that we could go and eat.The little Sultan professed inability.'I drink whiskey very little', he said with a sheepishly naughty laugh.'Hardly a drop', I said encouragingly.H.H. smiled in friendship at me and then said 'I used to drink to excess'.He gave his gay, infectious laugh which is like that of a boy who is being extremely naughty but who knows that he will get away with it because no one dare say him 'nay'.Afterwards he drank two more full whiskeys and-sodas.June 9thThe little Sultan died this morning at 9 o'clock. He had a haemorrhage last night, was taken from Raffles Hotel to the Hospital, and never had a chance of recovery. So passed away the last of the mediaeval Sultans.May 29-June 1stIn Brunei for the Coronation.Arrived with Abell on the Mermaid after two days at sea from Kuching .....The house party at the Residency, where Pretty--the greatest British Resident ever in Brunei, and the 'last of the Nineteenth Century Residents in Malaysia'--is entering on his last month:--[Revd P.H.H.] Howes, Abell, Prettys, Andrey and me.The lit-up kampong at night like a long procession of glow worms. An occasional firefly above in the form of a lamp on a pole.The Bendahara's eyes were popping [more] than ever as he raises his arm with its drawn sword and shouts 'Sambah', looking around at his audience with a glance that would be penetrating if they were not half-blind ...APPENDIX I: Robert Irvine, "Report of Visit to Brunei for the Coronation of H.H. the Sultan on the 17th March, 1940"[NA CO 717/143/20]I embarked on m.v. Marudu on Saturday the 9th March, 1940, and reached Labuan at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday the 13th March. I spent Wednesday night with Mr. Jakeman, the Resident, Labuan, at the Labuan Residency and about 12 noon on the following day I left for Brunei on the launch Kittiwake, arriving there at about 4.45 p.m.My formal landing in Brunei took place the following morning, the 15th March, at 9.30 a.m. It had been arranged for me to present the British Resident, Major E.E. Pengilley with his Efficiency Decoration at this formal landing. Accompanied by R.W. Jakeman, Resident, Labuan, and by Lieutenant Harun bin Mohamed Amin, Federated Malay States Volunteer Force (Superintendent of Education, Brunei) I traveled by the launch Muara from the Residency jetty to the Customs jetty, a distance of about 1 1/2 miles, and was met on arrival by the British Resident. Mr. Jakeman and I were in Civil Service uniform and Major Pengillcy and Lieut. Harun in Volunteer uniform. We ascended the Customs wharf and were accorded a salute by a Guard of Honour of 21 men of the Brunei Police under the command of the Chief Police Officer, Mr. W. Martin. The Guard was drawn up at the head of a hollow square facing my point of arrival, on one side were stationed the principal residents of Brunei town and on the other a number of privileged spectators. After inspecting the Guard of Honour I took up position behind a small table draped with a Union Jack near the middle of the hollow square, with Mr. Jakeman on my right and Lieut. Harun on my left and Major Pengilley stationed himself in front facing me at a few paces distance. Mr. Jakeman read out Major Pengilley's record of service in English and Lieut. Harun a Malay translation. Major Pengilley stepped forward and I pinned on his Decoration. I was then introduced to each of the principal residents. This concluded the formal landing and Major Pengilley, Mr. R.F. Evans (the representative from British North Borneo), Mr Jakeman and I left the Customs wharf and proceeded to the Astana [sic] Mahkota, 3 miles away, for a formal call on His Highness the Sultan.We arrived at the Astana at l0 a. m. and were shown upstairs by the A.D.C. and the Private Secretary to His Highness. In the room upstairs were the two wazirs (Duli Pengiran Bendahara and Dull Pengiran Pemancha), the Pengiran Shahbandar, several other Brunei Chiefs and Tengku Klana Jaya Petra, who had come to represent the Sultan of Selangor at the Coronation. The Sultan appeared almost immediately, in white uniform. He greeted us all very affably and invited us to sit. We conversed together for about a quarter of an hour and then t