Credits: historyandthings.com
At the age of 19 and pregnant in 1880, Queen Sunanda Kumariratana drowned with her two-year-old daughter in Siam (now Thailand). What is particularly crushing though, is many saw it happen, but could or would not intervene. Probably one of the saddest royal stories.
Sunanda was the king's number one wife, given that the monarch, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), had several wives. However, Sunanda was purportedly the king's true love, and their marriage was said to be based on love, not just for political purposes, of course.
Upon the birth of their daughter, Princess Kannabhorn Bejaratana, the palace declared a full week of celebration—an exceptionally rare honor especially since a royal girl birth usually received simple family blessings. Even by royal standards a full week of celebration for the birth of a royal daughter was an astonishingly rare occurrence.
On May 31, 1880, the queen and daughter were on a boat to the Bang Pa-In Summer Palace. As royal etiquette dictated, she could not travel in the larger royal barge with the other noble women, or touch the queen. The queen was required to travel in a smaller canoe alongside the larger royal barge.
Some distance in the Chao Phraya River, the smaller canoe capsized. The queen could not swim, but managed to hold her child. The queen began yelling "Help" as guards and servants were nearby. Reports state some did move to try to help, but were ordered to put away those working to help.
At the time, Siamese law allowed for the death penalty for anyone who touched a royal under any circumstances. The guards, frightened of the consequences, complied with the law. The queen, her unborn child, and the little princess drowned before the eyes of their entourage.
The king, in grief, later punished the commander of the guards - for allowing the law to prevail over basic human mercy, he probably executed the guard commander. He also provided the most elaborate royal funerals in the history of Siam, where the queen and princess's embalmed bodies lay on raised golden thrones, they were cremated almost a year later after mourning periods of twelve days by all possible decoration.
Even today, there is a marble memorial at Bang Pa-In Palace, where Queen Sunanda never arrived.
This post has been shared on Reddit by @davideownzall through the HivePosh initiative.