It has been many years since I was first introduced to who I would consider to be a rather eccentric esoteric of a woman named, the Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett, eventually the last Ranee of Sarawak. Actually her entire family, both that of her birth and the one she married into were a fascinating group of people.
Born into a family of mixed Scotch, Dutch and American ancestry, with a rumored connection to that wild Corsican genius, Napoléon Bonaparte, late Emperor of the French, Sylvia Brett, daughter to Viscount Esher was a character of the first order.
Sylvia married into a English family known as the ‘White Rajahs’; a dynasty that founded and ruled the Kingdom of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946, namely the Brookes, who came originally from England.
Upon 'meeting her the first time', I stumbled across her autobiography, aptly titled; 'Queen Of The Headhunters,' and fell absolutely in love with this character. The candid, eccentric and witty autobiography of Her Highness the Honorable Sylvia, Lady Brooke, wife of Sarawak ’s last White Rajah, was indeed a delightful read. Raised among footmen, the children of the Royal Family, the famous, and daughter of a British aristocrat who was the confidante of Prime Ministers, Sylvia seemed the least likely candidate to rule over a kingdom of Borneo
‘The runt in a litter of pedigree puppies,’ Sylvia suffered a bewildering an traumatic childhood pivoting between luxury (she continues a wicked story of her playmate, a young Prince Edward, assassinating some ducklings) and neglect. Her shyness and insecurity were only enhanced by her father’s austerity, yet even her pre-adolescent attempts at suicide were fiascos. Sylvia did, however, excel at writing, and both J. M. Barrie and G. B. Shaw became her literary mentors. When she fell madly in love with Vyner Brooke, the man who would rescue her and make her his queen, Shaw wrote; ‘I defy you to find a young man half as interesting as I am.’
But the most exotic of her memoirs is the story of her marriage to Vyner, last in the line of the infamous White Rajahs, one of the most remarkable dynasties of modern times. Her new home was a strange and beautiful land filled with natives as gay as they were savage. She relates with gusto the secrets of her married life – among them, her Rajah’s roving eye, which roved until his eighties and which never ruffled the Ranee or daunted their happiness together.
‘I did not like facts, and dates appall me: I’m afraid people who want both will not find much nourishment in the following pages. This is simply the story of my life and of some of the people who have affected it, for better or for worse. And, chiefly, it is about two unusual families, the Bretts and the Brookes, and the part that I played before and after I married the last White Rajah of Sarawak.’
‘ I am over eighty now, and memory, I find, is like will-o’-the-wisp. I can see the light ahead of me and I try to grasp it; it remains elusive, yet the senses are there, the sense of a sound, a touch, a perfume. Smooth oak or cedar wood or silk will bring back an old house or a nursery or a room where love has been born; a perfume recreates the aromatic glory of the jungles of the East. These are the things that linger, that fill one’s old age and make one young again.’
‘Some may look upon this book as frivolous, and say that I have skimmed too lightly over the surface of the years; but I have tried to convey a picture, warm and colorful, maybe at times a cruel picture, of the people I have met and the things I have done, and that have been done to me. I don’t claim any more for it than that.’
‘I wish to thank my dear friend Frank de Buono for his enthusiasm, his excellent advice and endless patience, without which I should never have been able to compile and complete this book’
‘I dedicate this book to the memory of my husband – the man who was my greatest friend, who never let me down, and who made me laugh more than anyone I have ever known’
SB
Queen of the Head Hunters is a unique personal history of an era when autocracy was kindly, and of a woman who lived life like a fairy tale. A more fleshed out version of this remarkable lady's life was published in 2007, a read that I highly recommend!
The Girl Who Would Be Queen
By Philip Eade
The White Rajahs of Sarawak ruled over their kingdom for more than 100 years, but the outlandish behaviour of the last Ranee, Sylvia Brooke, helped to bring about their downfall. Philip Eade traces her story
At the Daily Telegraph obituaries desk in April 2002 we were telephoned by a man introducing himself as Stewart McNair. He was the only son of Valerie Brooke, a colourful figure known as 'Princess Baba' during the 1930s, and the grandson of Sir Vyner Brooke, the last White Rajah of Sarawak, whose extraordinary wife Ranee Sylvia had adopted the sobriquet 'Queen of the Headhunters'. Mr McNair, himself a headhunter, the recruitment kind, was calling to suggest an obituary of his aunt Elizabeth Brooke Vidmer ('Princess Pearl'), who had recently died in Barbados
The Brookes had ruled their jungle kingdom on the island of Borneo
Yet he ruled his kingdom rather as if it were an English country estate, with tribal chiefs always welcome at the big house. His family appeared in Burke's Landed Gentry as 'Brooke of Sarawak', and his career was encapsulated in one of the more arresting entries in Who's Who: 'Has led several expeditions into the far interior of the country to punish headhunters; understands the management of natives; rules over a population of 500,000 souls and a country 40,000 square miles in extent.'
Prior to the Second World War, the press in Britain Britain
The whimsical Rajah, his Rasputin-like private secretary and the ham-fisted British government all bore their share of responsibility for the clumsy way in which the Raj was brought to an end. But in many people's eyes a bigger villain was Ranee Sylvia, the extravagantly dressed author of 11 books who was submissive consort one moment, outrageous self-dramatist the next, described by the press as 'that most charming of despots', and by her brother as 'a female Iago'.
When Steven Runciman wrote his history The White Rajahs (1960), he admitted privately that tact and fear of legal proceedings had 'kept me from saying too openly what I think about the later stages'. 'Of the Ranee,' he wrote in a letter to Rajah Vyner's niece, 'I've said very little, as I didn't want to risk libel.' There being no risk of that after Ranee Sylvia's death in 1971, I decided to write her biography, although one esteemed historian confessed he was baffled that I should want to write about such a 'wretched' and 'seedy' character.
Sylvia's elder sister Dorothy - later better known as the Bloomsbury painter 'Brett' and the third in DH Lawrence's ménage à trois in New Mexico -recalled being wheeled in a double pram with Sylvia by their nurse in Hyde Park one day and being told to wave to their father, Reginald Brett, who was out walking with a friend. Reggie wondered to his friend why those children were waving at him. 'Perhaps they are yours,' the friend ventured.
Reggie Brett, a courtier who succeeded his father as the second Viscount Esher in 1899 when Sylvia was 14, was a fabulously well-connected man, the confidant of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V, and of every prime minister from Rosebery to Baldwin . Yet he was a remote and often cruelly insensitive father to his children when they were little, apart from his younger son Maurice, whom he worshipped. Girls, in particular, were 'tiresome things until they are grown up', as far as Reggie was concerned.
Written off as plain and tongue-tied by her father, subordinated by her brothers (it was her duty every morning to do up their bootlaces) and mauled by her father's secretary, Sylvia made two attempts at suicide by the time she was 12: she first tried ptomaine poisoning, buying a tin of sardines from the village shop, opening it and leaving it on top of her cupboard for seven days before eating it; when that failed, she sought to catch pneumonia by lying naked in the snow.
After suffering further agonies of adolescent inadequacy, followed by miserable seasons as a ballroom wallflower, she sought refuge in her writing. Lunching each day at 'Lord Esher's table' at the Savoy Grill, she befriended JM Barrie, who helped her to publish her short stories. One of these, The Left Ladies, was inspired by Sylvia's fear of being left on the shelf, a fear exacerbated by the stuttering progress in the closest thing she had had to a love affair.
She had first met Vyner Brooke, the Rajah Muda of Sarawak , in 1903, when he was 29 and she had joined the all-girl orchestra cunningly formed by Vyner's mother, Ranee Margaret, as a means of introducing suitable young ladies to her three shy sons, each of whom would eventually marry a member of the ensemble. Vyner had quickly declared his love for 18-year-old Sylvia, but a combination of her parents' hostility (Reggie Esher not only thoroughly disapproved of despotic forms of government, but also regarded the White Rajahs as characters out of a comic opera) and her own uncertainty meant that it was not until 1911 that she finally accepted him.
At their wedding the press turned out in force, eager to report the news that Lord Esher's daughter had married the heir to 'one of the most romantic sovereignties in all Asia', 'Lord and Taker of Life', 'the greatest autocrat on earth'. When they returned from honeymoon, George Bernard Shaw, Sylvia's other literary admirer, had sent a nursery rhyme:
'Ride a cock horse
To Sarawak Cross
To see a young Ranee consumed with remorse.
She'll have bells on her fingers
And rings through her nose,
And won't be permitted to wear any clo'es.'
A year later, in 1912, Vyner took Sylvia on her first visit to Sarawak . After a week she wrote from the royal palace (Astana) to tell Shaw that she was 'alas no longer what I was, a humble, dutiful wife, but a howling snob with a head as swelled as the largest coconut in the land - every time I go to pick a flower in the garden the guard turns out, and every time I go to buy a button in the village, 60 people gather about the shop, when we go to dinner our national anthem is played as we go up the steps, and we sit upon cloths of gold.'
In 1918 Vyner succeeded his father, Rajah Charles, and Sylvia became Ranee. By this time she had produced three daughters but no son. (Before each birth the old Rajah had primed the bellringers in Sarawak to announce the arrival of a future heir to the Brooke Raj, but they clung to the ropes waiting for a signal that never came.) Shortly after the birth of her third daughter, Valerie, Sylvia was told that she could have no more children, so instead she hatched various schemes aimed at overturning the rules of succession in favour of her eldest, Leonora - 'Princess Gold'. At the same time she took every opportunity to blacken the name of the heir apparent, Vyner's nephew Anthony Brooke, accusing him of folie de grandeur when Vyner briefly left him in charge of Sarawak . She said that he had clamped a golden cardboard crown to his car and instructed that all traffic draw aside at his approach.
Sylvia was hardly one to talk, having confessed to her father shortly after her marriage that she wanted 'crowns plastered everywhere'. In general she did not do dignity. Her lack of restraint as Ranee shocked serious-minded members of the Sarawak service - in 1930 the chief justice complained to his mother about the 'unbelievable amount of smut in Her Highness's conversation'. In 1946, after observing the Ranee dancing with two prostitutes in a nightclub and taking them back to the palace to paint their portraits, a visiting MP from Westminster concluded that 'a more undignified woman it would be hard to find'.
Sylvia's daughters, meanwhile, grew up with little in the way of boundaries and Sylvia was happy to live vicariously through them, relishing the fact that 'they never had to stand in a row of anxious virgins as I had done, waiting to be asked to dine or dance'. The 'dangerously beautiful' Brooke girls eventually married eight times between them; their various husbands included the 2nd Earl of Inchcape and the bandleader Harry Roy. According to cousin Anthony, their antics turned Sarawak into 'a music hall joke'.
When, in 1937, Valerie, the wildest of the three, fell into the clutches of the European middleweight 'catch-as-catch-can' wrestling champion Bob Gregory, her wedding was attended by a blaze of publicity which they eagerly fanned by driving around London in a white open car with 'Baba and Bob' painted on the back, and Valerie carrying a toy monkey, larger than she was, wherever she went. They later announced they were going to buy an island in the Netherlands East Indies to be called 'Babaland', where 'every man would be Rajah'. 'We're going to have a democracy,' Valerie declared, 'but with a court and things - maybe an aristocratic democracy. I think a country without lots of uniforms and braids is no fun.'
Publicly, Sylvia joined with Vyner in disapproving of the match, but in the view of the stern chief justice, she was entirely to blame for bringing her daughters up 'like tarts'. At the same time, she contributed to what Anthony called 'this rotten, cheap publicity' by making wildly inaccurate statements whenever she stumbled across a journalist. She did nothing to dispel the impression that Sarawak was populated entirely by headhunters and lotus eaters, and saw to it that her position and influence as Ranee remained enshrouded in myth. But while her peculiar status and activities were endlessly celebrated by the press, the Colonial Office (CO) had long regarded her as 'a dangerous woman'.
In 1942, when she arrived back in England from Sarawak, imaginatively claiming that she had just 'escaped' from the invading Japanese, and volunteering to go on a lecture tour, the CO could think of nothing 'calculated to do less good and more mischief than a lecture by this lady'. After the war, she wanted to be part of the advance party to Sarawak to help re-establish 'normal life', but it was tersely minuted that she 'ought to be the last civilian in the queue - her spiritual home is Hollywood Sarawak , in 1946, it was to accompany Vyner as he prepared to abdicate. Although she maintained otherwise, she had been secretly pushing for a transfer of sovereignty since the late 1930s. With the country now on its knees after four years of occupation, and with Anthony's presumptuous attitude over the succession becoming increasingly irksome to them both, cession to Britain in return for a financial settlement had become all the more attractive.
On this, their final visit to their kingdom, they landed as usual by flying boat at the mouth of the Sarawak river and transferred to the royal yacht, with Sylvia standing on deck waving her silk scarf all the way upriver to the capital Kuching. 'Never before had we received such a tremendous welcome,' she recalled: 'hundreds of little boats lined the river banks, and behind the boats the crowds were so dense they looked like a forest of dazzling flowers with their golden sarongs and little coloured coats.'
As they went ashore, a 21-gun salute boomed out from Fort Margherita, and as they walked among the people, Sylvia four paces behind her husband (according to Sarawakian custom, she was his slave), Malay women surged through the guard, prodding Vyner beneath his royal yellow umbrella and teasing him that 'the Rajah has got fat'. Later on, as they looked down from their upstairs veranda at the palace, the crowd sang Salamat rumah Tuan Rajah (Blessings on your house, Rajah) and Salamat Tuan Ranee. Sylvia recalled that she 'would have felt further from tears if some of them had denounced us and called down curses on our heads instead of invoking this gracious and merciful benediction, this unanimous affection.' She wondered if it was crossing Vyner's mind not to go through with the cession.
Over the next few days, Dyak chiefs came to the palace to tell of their wartime experiences. Sylvia's old favourite, Temenggong Koh, was now aged 76 but he looked younger than he had before the war, 'refreshed' by the renewed headhunting that had taken place during the occupation. In Sarawak as a whole it was estimated that 1,500 Japanese had lost their heads - which were particularly prized by the Dyaks for being 'nice round heads with good hair and gold teeth'. Officers in the Sarawak service thought that 'this three and a half years of glorious hunting' would not make the Dyaks out of hand, but rather the fact that they had replenished their head supply would tend to keep them quiet.
Vyner and Sylvia later made one final journey up the Rejang river to Kapit, where Temenggong Koh had summoned hundreds of Kayans and Dyaks in their war boats, scarlet capes and hornbill feather head-dresses. When the Rajah came ashore and made a speech, they all fell silent. As Sylvia later wrote, 'he was amongst the people that he loved; and as always in such circumstances, his shyness disappeared. I don't think I have ever admired Vyner more than I did then, as he stood, a tall informal figure in a khaki suit and an old white topi, addressing his warriors and their wives, explaining to them the reasons for the cession. He did not read his speech, but told his story in their legendary language and in the only way that they could really understand; and their fierce lashless eyes never left his face.'
They spent their last night in a longhouse, and the next morning inspected a collection of Japanese heads, which had been smoked and hung in a special corner of the longhouse. The Dyaks explained that they had sent their prettiest daughters down to a pool in the jungle to bathe, and, as Sylvia recorded, when the Japanese had crept up to stare at them 'they had simply lopped off their heads as they went by'.
On July 26, 1946, soon after Sylvia and Vyner returned to London , the Privy Council ordered the annexation of Sarawak to the British Crown. For the first time during their marriage they were now entirely redundant in her affairs, 'shorn of our glory,' Sylvia wrote in her autobiography, 'and faced with the necessity of adjusting to a world in which we were no longer emperors but merely two ordinary, ageing people, two misfits...'
After her unhappy childhood, Sarawak had been 'like a dream come true', and when it ended her existence seemed 'pointless and monotonous, waking up in the morning with no definite purpose, no plan of activity, and with no future to look forward to, only the past to remember.' At night she 'still seemed to hear the Dyak gongs and the distant resonance of muffled drums; to inhale the perfume of the flowers in the little Malay girls' hair. Would I ever cease to long for that enchanted land, or to forget that I had once been part-ruler of it; or break myself of the habit of standing whenever Vyner entered a room, or walking dutifully four paces behind him? Now that we no longer had our country, we had a feeling of isolation, of not belonging. Where was the sentry presenting arms as we went in and out? Where were the Malay boys softly and gracefully waiting on our every wish? Perhaps I had enjoyed it all more than I should...'
Her desolation was compounded by the fact that she and Vyner now lived separately, she in a flat in Archery Close, just north of Hyde Park , he in a house in Albion Street
Occasionally, he would ask Sylvia to help him get rid of one of his girlfriends, whereupon she would go round to his house and play the indignant wife. She affected to tolerate his endless affairs as 'part of his colour and charm... his little foolishness', adding that in any case it was not entirely his fault, for although she had 'thawed considerably in the Sarawak sun, I was still, to all intents and purposes, a frigid woman'.
She denied that she felt jealous, explaining to her sister Dorothy that she and Vyner had 'too good an understanding for that', and that they had 'made a glorious success of our marriage just because we don't behave like any other husband and wife have ever behaved. We go out together, dine together, have lots of fun, and then at night we call it a day, and go back to our virgin beds. No one who has ever married has so hated the sleeping together more than either he or I did... It's all right when you are young, and it's all right if you want kids. But as an act it is both ridiculous and awkward, and I take a very poor view of it indeed.'
'Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters: An Outrageous Englishwoman and her Lost Kingdom
‘An Interesting Englishwoman’
By Helene Cross
The Sydney Morning Herald
September 10, 1913
Not so far from Australia is the Island of Borneo , and in it exists the romantic little country, Sarawak . As everyone knows, the interest attaching to it is the fact that its rulers are British people and British subjects, although the country is their own, and they rule over it.
Sir Charles Brooke, who is the present ruler of Sarawak, has spent his whole life in the interests of the county to which he succeeded after the death of his uncle, the first English Rajah. Many years ago he married a beautiful and intelligent young English girl, and it is with this lady that this article chiefly deals. At the age of 18 years, the young Ranee was taken to her home in this country, so far from her own land, so remote, so different from all she had ever seen. But the brave young girl, arriving in a country where she saw few of her own race, and where she was surrounded by servants and subjects of a different colour, settled with wonderful rapidity to the duties of her new existence, and with energy and tact straightway set about getting at the hearts of her subjects.
On her arrival at her new home, so many years ago as a bride, the new Ranee and her husband were met and welcomed by the men of the country, who looked excitedly forward to the advent of this fair young English girl. The bride asked where all the women were, and was told that it was not the custom for the women to come forward and take any part on an occasion of that kind. Particularly was this the case in the connection with the wives of the Malay part of the popular, who, as Mohammedans, are expected to keep in the background. Young and unsophisticated as she was, the Ranee felt that she would change matters as far as she was concerned, and see all she could of her women subjects. The next day she accordingly sent for them, to make friends with them, and to enter more or less into their lives and circumstances. She found them friendly, and most interested and interesting. Then commenced the great desire on the young bride’s side that she should know and understand her people, and make them love and trust her! To the long broad verandah of the palace the women came daily, with their troubles and their joys, their requests and their stories, to be received and listened to, and comforted, and congratulated. Thus both rulers have worked their way into the hearts of their people, and have shown that all along they intended the very best for their welfare.
The Ranee has a great liking for her Mohammedan subjects, the Malays, she admires their customs and their general character. The crossbreed which results from union between the Dyaks and the Malays for the Chinese is also satisfactory in every way. The good characteristics of the two peoples come out in the children. Sarawak is not, on the whole, a country for the white man. The climate is too hot, and though there is hill country, it has not, so far, been lived upon. It is, as the Ranee says, par excellence a country for the people who are born there, who live there in independence by their own industry, and whose the land is by right of inheritance.
The Ranee is not only interested in the human portion of her domain. The animals also have a share in her sympathies. In that warm, tropical climate there are animals which fall a prey to the hunter, and birds who lovely plumage excite the cupidity of the fortuneseeker. These birds and animals are also, in a measure, protected and cherished. A very interesting speech on that subject was given by the Ranee at a ‘protection of birds’ dinner, at the Lyceum Ladies Club in London
Sultana Of Sarawak
An Oriental Princess Of
Bostonese Ancestry
Wife Of Only British Subject With Sovereign Rights
Sultan’ Court Has Power Over Life and Death
By F. Cunliffe-Owen
The New York Times
May 27, 1917
Sarawak’s new First Lady is the daughter of the Viscount Esher, Deputy Constable of Windsor Castle
Sylvia, Ranee of Sarawak, is no stranger to her Sultanate. For, although she retains her home on the Thames, known as Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, she has spent several years in the Orient, where her husband, Charles Vyner Brooke, has been acting as regent in the place of his father, who died recently in England Winchester College and at Cambridge
According to a decree of Edward VII, confirmed in 1911 by King George V, the rulers o Sarawak enjoy the same status as the vassal sovereigns of the first class of India. That being said, the Sultan of Sarawak, and his Sultana, while remaining under the protection of King George’s suzerainty, and as such debarred from contracting alliances or treaties with any foreign powers, are in every other sense independent sovereigns, and treated as such in the British Orient and in England. They enjoy ex-territorial privileges and immunities from the jurisdiction of the British courts of law, are accorded the same military honors as royalty, including the salute of twenty-one guns, and are addressed as ‘Your Highness.’ Moreover, when either the Sultan or his consort appears at the Court Of St. James the King and Queen advance to meet them.
The new Sultan and his wife have already undergone some exciting experiences in Sarawak . The late Sultan, Sir Charles Brooke, in his younger days, had been an officer of the British Navy. He made the mistake several years ago of inviting a nephew, Brooke Johnson, to join him in Sarawak, appointed him Governor of a province, and afterward Postmaster General, Chief Justice, and even, I believe, Commander in Chief of the army. At any rate, Brooke Johnson directed several military expeditions t put down insurrections. In the end his head became turned, he believed he was indispensible and that he, rather than Charles Vyner Brooke, was entitled to succeed the throne.
On the return of Sir Charles to Sarawak the nephew was dismissed from service and banished from the dominions. Brooke Johnson thereupon, established himself as a trader in the Territory of Lawas Province of Lawas
THe British Government held aloof on the ground that intervention would have constituted an infraction of the sovereign rights of Sir Charles Brooke, guaranteed by the Government is return for his acceptance of it suzerainty. And then, too, it would have constituted a sorry recognition for all the work he had accomplished in establishing law and order among the people, who, until he and his uncle and predecessor, Sir James Brooke, took hold of Sarawak, were renowned for their ferocity as the dreaded ‘Dyak head hunters,’ whose prestige depended upon the number of human heads they had been able to collect as trophies. Brooke and his army, after a series of battles, routed his cousin out of Lawas.
The new Sultan and his consort have a keen sense of humor, take a broad view of life, and are exceptionally gifted. They are surrounded by European luxuries of Kuching, their capital. Kuching, typically Oriental on one hand, possesses many evidences of Western civilization, such as an elaborate telephone system, automobiles, and electric tram cars. Contrasts are found in the royal palace, where at dinner the Sultan, his wife, and their European guests will be garbed in the customary evening dress, seated beside perhaps half a dozen native dignitaries or chieftains, wearing nothing but a waist-cloth which does not descend much below the knees. Native women do not appear at these dinners. The present Sultana entertains them at receptions, and has managed to win their confidence and affection to a remarkable degree.
The Sultan has the power of life and death over his subjects. Of all Oriental races, the Malays have the reputation of being the most prejudiced against the whites. The high executioner is an important dignitary of the Sarawak Administration, and the wife of the former Sultan, in a volume of reminiscences, gave a most amusing description of the visits which she received from the lord high executioner, a kindly mannered and patriarchal gentleman possessed of a fund of native information and sagacity.
The story of Sarawak is full of thrilling adventures, and the role played in connection with it by the lat Lady Burdett-Coutts, is know only to a few. More than fifty years ago the Baroness fitted out an armed expedition to suppress pirates then infesting the Strait of Malacca . She entrusted the command of it to the Hon. Harry Keppel. (who died as Sir Harry Keppel, Admiral of the Fleet,) and to Sir James Brooke, a wealthy officer of the Bengal Army. They practically wiped out the piracy of the strait.
Sir James declined to return with Sir Harry to England Sarawak , embracing the Northern and Western portions of the great Malay Island of Borneo, and bestowing upon him the title of Rajah. There Sir James set up a Government as far as possible on English lines, the British Crown allowing army and navy officers on half pay to take temporary service under his orders: while Lady Burdett-Coutts continued for many years, and until Sarawak became self-supporting, to act as financial backer of the enterprise.
Sir James was, in due course, succeeded by his nephew, Sir Charles Brooke, who considerably extended the territory subject to his rule by purchase and by conquest, acquiring the title of Sultan, in addition to that of Rajah. He has now in turn been succeeded by his eldest son.
Before taking leave of the new Sultana of Sarawak, it may be of interest to recall that her New England grandmother was the first of the American friends of Queen Victoria , and assuredly the most intimate, no other woman from the United States
The Baron figures frequently in Queen Victoria Victoria enjoy the society of the American-born Baroness Van der Weyer that she made a present to her and to the Baron of the site in Windsor Forest where New Lodge was built, so that she might have them near by while at Windsor Victoria
The Brookes of Sarawak are the only English-born citizens to whom the British Crown has accorded the recognition of sovereignty. Sidney Ross, owner of the Cocos Islands, some 800 miles to the southwest of the Dutch East Indies, wher the battered hull of the German raider Emden lies rotting on the beach, remains a British subject, although he is permitted to administer the Government, subject to supervision by official inspectors from the Governor of the Straits, Settlements at Singapore
The Scilly Isles, Great Britain ’s outposts on the Atlantic first bit of English territory to meet the gaze of American visitors to Europe at the entrance of the Channel, belong to Thomas A. Dorrien-Smith, brother of General Sir Horace Dorrien-Smith. He rules over his 2,000 lieges in feudal fashion. As Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of King George he has the power of sentencing offenders to prison and of inflicting upon them the punishment which they dread even more than detention in jail – banishment from the Scillys. He, like Ross of the Cocos Islands, is a subject of the British Crown, and has not claim to any such independence or sovereignty as is enjoyed by the Brooke rulers of Sarawak .
FORMER RANEE OF SARAWAK VISITS
Storybook Life Was Hers As Rajah’s Wife
By Jane Lepley
Of The Times Staff
July 8, 1965
Introducing Her Royal Highness Ranee Sylvia Brooke, wife of the last White Rajah of Sarawak – the late Sir Vyner Brooke.
Lady Brooke, a charming, gray haired woman of 80, is visiting her daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Vidmer of Madeira Beach Great Britain
The sparkling little Ranee explains she was little more than a bride when she first went to the country – now part of the Federation of Malaysia.
She saw many changes during her years there. When she arrived, there were only two other white women.
At her last formal dinner on New Year’s Eve in 1946, she had 100 for dinner.
During their rule, schools were built, hospitals set up, judicial courts established and numerous innovations brought about by Sir Vyner, who was known as ‘The Good;’ his father, Sir Charles, ‘The Wise’: and the first White Rajah, Sir James, ‘The Brave.’
Sir Vyner – ‘the great white father to many of the natives,’ – ruled as an autocrat. He was the third in a line of family rule begun in 1841, when Sir James Brooke was given power over Sarawak, ‘together with all its dependencies and present and future revenues’ by the Rajah Muda Hassim, for lending aid during a civil war.
Her husband’s main goal was to ‘better the way of life of the inhabitants’ – the Malays, the Sea Dyaks, the Land Dyaks and the Chinese.
Lady Brooke met her husband through his mother, Ranee Margaret, who lived in London
The petite Lady Brooke told with a shy smile how, ‘I plated the big drum and was all eyes for the young Rajah Muda – who was quite handsome.’
The wedding in 1911 was attended by members of the royal family and much of Britain
Upon arriving in Sarawak , ‘I found most of the natives wearing only a chawat – similar to a loin cloth. Today this is only seen in the far interior.’
Being married to the heir to the country wasn’t always easy, said the Lady. As members of the reigning family – as rulers – the Brookes had to travel annually around the country – ‘even into head-hunting country.’
The duty I enjoyed least was required of me as Ranee. I had to make monthly visits to the leper camp. Vyner insisted that I make these trips – taking blankets, clothes, food and medicine to the people there. I was able to aid science by keeping a complete photographic record of the stages of the disease in an individual.’
As wife of the Rajah, Lady Brooke was required to ‘walk four paces behind Vyner. He was always covered by a large yellow umbrella – a symbol of his office – and I was never allowed under it – even if it was raining.’
Artistically inclined, Lady Brooke designed the clothes Sir Vyner wore on official occasions. His black suit had gold palm leaves down the coat front and around the sleeves. For semi-official functions, he wore a similar suit of white. She also had an official outfit to match the Rajah’s.
‘I did most of my shopping for ready-made things at Singapore
Although Lady Brooke saw many changes in the educational system of Sarawak, most of the children of English parentage were educated in England
The Ranee always went to England for the birth of her children and returned to Sarawak as soon as each was able to walk.
The Brookes lived in Astana – the palace – across the river from the town of Kuching
In taking care of a such a large household, the former ruler always employed male servants – even for the children. ‘The women in the households tended to cause only trouble.’
‘Food was prepared Chinese style and beautifully cooked – and there was the most wonderful fish,’ recalls the Ranee.
‘We were out of the country when the Japanese invaded the island and weren’t able to return to Sarawak until Australian forces entered Kuching in September 1945. The next year we made out final tour, trying to explain to the natives the necessity for the cession to Great Britain
Until the Rajah’s death in London , in 1963, Lady Brooke lived in England and wintered in Barbados , West Indies , where she now lives.
She had planned to re-visit Sarawak this year, but, because of the unrest in the Federation of Malaysia, she postponed the trip.
The autobiography of the Ranee is, at present, in the hands of her New York Sarawak .
Princess Pearl of Sarawak & Harry Roy
All The Rajah’s Daughters
Let Their Hearts Rule
When It Comes To Matter Of Marriage
By Milton Bronner
NEA Service Staff Correspondent
The Tuscaloosa
December 27, 1937
And one of them married a Lord. And one married a band-master. And one married an all-in wrestler.
This children, is no Christmas season bed-time story. These are the facts about the three daughters of the Rajah and Ranee of Sarawak .
The sovereigns are not as Oriental as their title sounds. In fact, they are 100 per cent British. The family name is Brooke. The whole family story is one of modern romance and adventure. Hence it is no surprise that the daughters are romantic.
Four years ago Leonora, Princess Gold, the eldest, married the second Earl of Inchcape. Nearly three years ago, Elizabeth, Princess Pearl, married Harry Roy, a young Jewish band-master. A few weeks ago Valerie, Princess Baba, married Robert Gregory, all-in wrestler and middle weight catch-as-catch champion of Europe .
Publicity Irks Parents
Mrs. Roy is the tweeny – that is, she is younger than Lady Inchcape and older than Mrs. Gregory. In her swank Park Lane
‘Daddy and mother both realize that we are independent by heredity,’ she said. ‘We could not be otherwise. We children were never cribbed, cabined and confined. We were trained to be independent and self-helpful. Our school days were spent in England , but our play-time was out in Sarawak . There are few white people there and there were few white children of our age. We had playmates among the Malay natives. We spoke Malay as fluently as English. It was the Malays who called my elder sister Princess Gold on account of her fair complexion and golden hair. Me they called Princess Pearl. They called my younger sister, Princess Baba, because she was the baby of the family.
‘I suppose the happy, free life we led in Sarawak, the excursions we made, the contacts we had with all sorts and conditions of people, made up what you have just called democratic. At any rate, we grew up without being caste-bound, or title proud. When we grew up we just naturally married the men we loved, regardless of what snobs might think.
‘I am prouder to be Mrs. Roy than to be Dayang, the native title which I bore as the daughter of the Rajah and Ranee.’
“After I got through school, I came back to London to study at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in London
‘That husband of mine actually found out I could sing. So he has made me croon in some of the films and I sometimes do so with his band.’
‘Title Was Sultan’s Gift’
The romantic fortunes of the Brooke family were founded by James Brooke, born in Benares , India India
Inheriting $150,000 from his father, in 1839 he bought a yacht and set forth for the Far East in search of more adventure. He landed in Borneo when the Sultan of Sarawak was at war with the head-hunters. Brooke took service with him and in two years conquered the rebellious tribes. The grateful Sultan made him Rajah of Sarawak, which is in Northwest Borneo . At first his territory was 7,000 square miles, but this was gradually increased until now it is 50,000 square miles with 500,000 people. England recognized Rajah Brooke as an independent sovereign and later made Sarawak a British protectorate. But this sovereignty remains hereditary in the Brooke family.
Nephew Inherited Throne
The first Rajah was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Johnson Brooke, in 1868. He, in turn, was succeeded by his son, Charles Vyner Brooke, in 1917. After being educated at Cambridge University , he went out to Sarawak and immediately led a strenuous life, fighting Dyak head hunters, pirates and Chinese opium smugglers. When he was a mere lad of 19, he had met in England
Young Vyner Brooke and his sweetheart planned an elopement but it miscarried. Later her returned from Borneo and his suit was accepted by the girl’s parents. They were married in 1911. English society knew so little about the East Indies that many did not know that the reigning family of Sarawak was pure British.
“The Sarawaki”
Leonora, Elizabeth & Nancy Brooke
1 a Dayang Leonora Margaret Brooke.
18.XI.1911 – 26.VI.1996
1b Dayang Elizabeth
2.IX.1913 – 14.III.2002
1c Dayang Nancy Valerie Brooke.
2.XII.1915 – 19.VIII.1993
PARENTS
2 Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke, 3rd Rajah of Sarawak.
26.IX.1874 – 9.V.1963 m: 21.II.1911
3 Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett.
25.II.1885 – 11.XI.1971
GRANDPARENTS
4 Charles Anthoni Brooke, 2nd Rajah of Sarawak .
3.VI.1829 – 17.V.1917 m: 28.X.1869
5 Margaret Alice Lily de Windt.
9.X.1849 – 1.XII.1936
6 Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher.
30.VI.1852 – 22.I.1930 m:
7 Eleanor Frances Weston Van de Weyer.
d. 7.II.1940
GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
8 Rev. Francis Charles Johnson.
26.II.1797 – 22.XII.1874 m: 22.III.1822
9 Emma Frances Brooke. 1802 – 9.V.1870
10 Joseph Clayton Jennyns de Windt. d. 3.VIII.1863 m:
11 Elizabeth Sarah Johnson.
12 Sir William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher.
13.VIII.1815 – 24.V.1899 m: 3.IV.1850
13 Eugenie Mayer. 1814 - 4.VI.1904
14 Jean Sylvain Van Der Weyer. 19.I.1802 - 23.V.1874 m: 1839
15 Elizabeth Anne Sturgis Bates. d. 1878
GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
16 Rev. Charles Johnson.
1760 – 1843 m: 25.III.1790
17 Mary Willes.
18 Thomas Brooke.
1760 – 30.XI.1835 m: 1.II.1793
19 Anna Maria Stuart. 1773 – 24.IX.1843
20 Joseph Clayton Jennings.
21 Margaret Katherine Bray.
22 John Samuel Willes Johnson.
3.VIII.1793 – 25.VIII.1863 m: 14.V.1821
23 Elizabeth de Windt. 15.I.1795 – 24.IV.1842
24 Rev. Joseph George Brett. 1790 – V.1852 m:
25 Dorothy Best.
26 Louis Mayer.
26a Napoleon Bonaparte. 15.VIII.1769 – 5.V.1821
27 Fanny Kreilsamner.
28 Josse Alexandre Van der Weyer.
1769 - 1838
29 Francoise Martine Goubau.
12.XI.1779 -
30 Joshua Bates.
10.X.1788 – 24.IX.1864 m:
31 Lucretia Augusta Sturgis.
GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
32 John Johnson. 1732 – 1814
33
34 Rev. William Willes.
35 Margaret Jones/Jeans.
36 Robert Brooke.
37 Ruth Casson Pattle. 1741 – 10.III.1829
38 Col. William Stuart, 9th Baron Blantyre. 1727 – 16.I.1776 ~~~~
39 Harriet Teasdale.
40 Richard Downing Jennings
41 Elizabeth Packwood. d. 18.X.1812
44 Charles Johnson.
1760 – 1843 m: 25.III.1790
45 Mary Willes.
46 Jan de Windt. c. 5.X.1765 -
m: 8.VII.1790
47 Sarah Roosevelt.
c. 8.XI.1771 – 13.VII.1850
48 Joseph George Brett.
1760 – 17.VI.1845 m: (1).
49 Isabella Maria Christiana Forbes.
d. VII.1802
50 George Best.
51 Caroline Scott.
52a Carlo Maria Bonaparte. 27.III.1746 – 24.II.1785 m: 2.VI.1764
53a Letizia Ramolino. 24.VIII.1749 – 2.II.1836
60 Joshua Bates. 27.I.1755 – 3.II.1804 m:
61 Tirzah Pratt. 12.VI.1764 – 4.III.1841
62 Samuel Sturgis.
63 Elizabeth Jennings.
GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
68 Edward Willes, Bishop of Bath
69 Jane White.
70 William Jones/Jeans.
71
72 Robert Brooke.
73 Elizabeth Collet.
74 Thomas Charles Pattle.
75 Elizabeth Anne Frances Middleton.
76 Robert Stuart, 7th Baron Blantyre.
1683 - 17.XI.1743 m:
77 Margaret Hay. c. 1698 – 13.XII.1782
82 John Packwood. d. 30.IX.1794 m:
83 Maria Ratterie.
88 John Johnson.
89
90 Rev. William Willes.
91 Margaret Jones/Jeans.
92 Jan Jacob de Windt.
17.VII.1745 – 15.V.1789 m: 13.XI.1765
93 Elizabeth Heyliger.
23.II.1750 – 1797
94 Adolphus Roosevelt. m: 31.XII.1759
95 Elizabeth Groebe.
1740 – 3.IX.1811
98 George Forbes.
99 Isabel Steuart.
100 James Best.
101 Frances Shelley.
102 Edward Scott.
103
104a Giuseppe Bonaparte
31.V.1731 – 13.XII.1763 m: 5.III.1741
105a Maria Saveria Paravicini.
7.IX.1717 – 1746/50
106a Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino.
13.IV.1723 – 1755 m:
107a Angela Maria de Pietra Santa.
26.X.1725 – 1790
120 Abraham Bates.
29.II.1723/4 -
121 Sarah Tower
122 Samuel Pratt.
7.IX.1722 – 12.V.1792 m:
123 Alethea Cushing.
21.II.1725/6 –
124 Thomas Sturgis.
125 Sally Paine.
GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
136 John Willes. 1647 – 1700 m:
137 Anne Walker. 1659 – 1732
138 Henry White.
139 Catherine Wright.
148 Thomas Pattle.
149 Sarah Hasleby.
150 Nathaniel Middleton.
151
152 Alexander Stuart, 5th Baron Blantyre.
d. 20.VI.1704 m:
153 Anne Hamilton. 1658 – 1722
154 William Hay.
155 Hon. Elizabeth Seton.
164 Joseph Packwood.
165 Mary
166 Jan Ratterie.
167
176 John Johnson. 1705 – 1780 m:
177 Frances
180 Edward Willes, Bishop of Bath
181 Jane White.
182 William Jones/Jeans.
183
184 Jan de Windt.
d. 9.I.1775 m: (1) 11.XI.1742
185 Aletta Van Rinkom.
186 Johannes Heyliger.
187 Judith Simonz Doncker.
202 Richard Shelley.
203 Mary Fleetwood.
208a Sebastiano Nicolo Bonaparte.
29.IX.1683 – 20.X.1720/1 m: 17.XII.1708
209a Maria Anna Tusoli di Boscognano.
1690 – 17.IX.1760
210a Giuseppe Maria Paravicini. d. 1741
211a Maria Angela Salineri.
212a Giovanni Agostino Ramolino.
28.VIII.1697 – 2.X.1777 m:
213a Angela Maria Peri.
214a Giuseppe Pietrasanta.
1700 – 1773 m:
215a Maria Giuseppa Malberba.
240 John Bates.
16.I.1684/5 – II.1770 m:
241 Alice Shaw.
13.IV.1687 –
242 Peter Tower
243 Patience Gardner
244 Samuel Pratt. d. 14.X.1744
245 Abigail Humphrey.
246 Capt. Adam Cushing.
1.I.1692/3 – 21.I.1752/3
247 Hannah Greenwood. 5.II.1694/5 –
248 Thomas Sturges.
249 Martha Russell.
272 Peter Willes. d. 1657
273 Sarah
274 Sir William Walker, knt.
276 Sir Sampson White, knt.
1606 -28.IX.1684 m: 1637
277 Mary Soper.
278 William Wright.
296 Thomas Pattle.
297 Elizabeth Brooke.
368 Jan de Windt. 1695 -
369 Adriana Catherina Hassel.
404 Sir John Shelley, 3rd Bart. of Michelgrove.
d. 25.IV.1703 m:
405 Mary Gage.
544 Peter Willes.
552 John White.
553 N. King.
554 Richard Soper.
592 Edward Pattle.
593 Ruth Casson.
808 Sir Charles Shelley, 2nd Bart. of Michelgrove.
d. 1681 m: 2.III.1651/2
809 Elizabeth Weston.
810 Sir John Gage, 4th Bart. of Firle.
d. 27.V.1699 m:
811 Mary Middlemore. D. 28.VII.1686
1088 Richard Willes. d. 1592
1089 Agnes Wagstaffe.
1184 Edward Pattle.
1185 Elizabeth
1618 Hon. Benjamin Weston. m: 5.VIII.1641
1619 Elizabeth Sheldon. d. 12.IV.1662
1620 Sir Thomas Gage, 2nd Bart. of Firle.
d. 2.VII.1654 m:
1621 Mary Chamberlain. d.1694
1622 Robert Middlemore.
1623 Henrietta Maria Drummond.
2176 Richard Willes. d. 1564
2177 Anne Murcott.
2178 Thomas Wasgstaffe.
2368 Hugh Pattle.
2369 Elizabeth Williamson.
3236 Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland
c. 1.III.1577 – 13.III.1635 m:
3237 Frances Waldegrave. d. 1645
3238 Thomas Sheldon.
3240 Sir John Gage, 1st Bart. of Firle.
d. 3.X.1633 m: 28.VI.1611
3241 Lady Penelope Darcy.
abt. 1594 – bfe. 2.VII.1661
3242 John Chamberlain.
3243 Katherine Plowden.
3244 Richard Middlemore.
3245 Mary Morgan.
3246 Sir Maurice Drummond.
3247 Dorothy Lower.
4352 Richard Willes.
4353 Joan Gaunt.
NR
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