The Astana

A nighttime view across the Sarawak River from Kuching of The Astana, now used as the official residence of the Governor of Sarawak. The palace was built by Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak for his wife, Margaret, as a wedding gift – although she is said to have spent much of the 50 years Charles was on the throne back in England.

The Astana today serves as one of the many memories of that period in the history of the East Malaysian state, a period when three Englishmen ruled over it as Rajahs. The story of the White Rajahs, which has fascinated me since my childhood when I first learnt of them after coming across a ship, the “Rajah Brooke” in the Straits Steamship Company’s fleet, began with the reign of James Brooke, often depicted as a swashbuckling adventurer. He obtained sovereignty over the territory around Kuching then controlled by the Sultanate of Brunei, as a reward for quelling a rebellion against the Sultan. The last of the White Rajah’s Vyner, son of Charles who was the nephew of childless James Brooke, ceded the territory, which had been expanded substantially, to the British Crown in 1946, thus ending the reign of the White Rajahs.

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