Ayuthaya
The Thai kings of Ayuthaya grew very powerful in the 14th and 15th centuries, taking over U Thong and Lopburi, former Khmer strongholds, and moving east in their conquests until Angkor was defeated in 1431. Even though the Khmers were their adversaries in battle, the Ayuthaya kings adopted large portions of Khmer court customs and language. One result of this acculturation was that the Thai monarch gained more absolute authority during the Ayuthaya period and assumed the title devaraja (god-king; thewárâat in Thai) as opposed to the dhammaraja (dharma-king; thammárâat) title used in Sukhothai.
Ayuthaya was one of the greatest and wealthiest cities in Asia at the time, a thriving seaport that entertained emissaries and traders from Europe, China and beyond. In 1690 Londoner Engelbert Campfer proclaimed, ‘Among the Asian nations, the Kingdom of Siam is the greatest. The magnificence of the Ayuthaya Court is incomparable. It has been said that London, at the time, was a mere village in comparison. The kingdom sustained an unbroken 400-year monarchical succession through 34 reigns, from King U Thong (r 1350–69) to King Ekathat (r 1758–67).
In the mid-16th century Ayuthaya and the independent kingdom of Lanna came under the control of the Burmese, but the Thais regained rule of both by the end of the century. Later attempts by the Burmese were successful in invading Ayuthaya in 1765 and the capital fell after two years of fighting. This time the invaders destroyed everything sacred to the Thais, including manuscripts, temples and religious sculpture. But the Burmese were unable to maintain a foothold in the kingdom, and the military leader Phraya Taksin, a half-Chinese, half-Thai general, re-established order in the kingdom, claimed the vacated monarchy for himself in 1769, and began ruling from the new capital of Thonburi on the banks of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, opposite Bangkok. Taksin eventually came to regard himself as the next Buddha; his ministers, who did not approve of his religious fantasies, deposed and then executed him.
cr: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thailand/history
