Amangkurat II

Amangkurat II, born Raden Mas Rahmat and nicknamed Sunan Amral for his taste for European naval uniform, was susuhunan of Mataram from 1677 to 1703, the eldest son of Amangkurat I; neither article gives his year of birth, and the Indonesian article states it expressly as unknown.¹² He regained a kingdom lost to the Trunajaya rebellion with Dutch arms and at Dutch price, founded Kartasura as his capital, and died there in 1703 — the English article gives 3 November 1703, the Indonesian and the Wikidata item the year alone.¹²³

Raised at Surabaya by his maternal grandfather Pangeran Pekik, he was crown prince (adipati anom) when word came that the title would pass to his brother Prince Singasari; his rebellion of 1661 was suppressed, and a poisoning attempt against him followed in 1663.¹ In 1668 he took his father's intended concubine Rara Oyi with Pekik's help; Amangkurat I executed Pekik and his family, and pardoned Rahmat only after forcing him to kill Rara Oyi with his own hands.¹² Seeking a spiritual sponsor, he turned in 1670 to Panembahan Rama of Kajoran, who introduced him to Rama's former son-in-law Trunajaya of Madura — the instrument, and then the master, of the rebellion that destroyed his father's court.¹

When Trunajaya took Plered on 2 July 1677 and his father died in flight eleven days later — poisoned, according to the Babad Tanah Jawi, by Rahmat himself — the new king at first planned to make the hajj pilgrimage rather than fight, then abandoned the plan, reportedly on receiving his divine mandate (wahyu keprabon), and carried out his father's will to seek Dutch help.¹² By the Jepara treaty of September 1677 the north coast from Karawang to Panarukan was mortgaged to the VOC for the war costs; Dutch-led forces retook Kediri in November 1678, Trunajaya was captured in 1679, and Amangkurat II killed him with his own hands on 2 January 1680.¹

Judging fallen Plered inauspicious, he built a new palace in the Wanakarta forest and moved the capital to Kartasura in 1680; his younger half-brother Prince Puger, who had held Plered and styled himself susuhunan, surrendered to the Dutch-backed king on 28 November 1681.¹ Restored by Dutch arms, he owed 2.5 million guilders for the war and chafed under Dutch control of the coast: the court sheltered the Dutch fugitive Untung Surapati, Captain François Tack was killed at Kartasura in 1686 while pursuing him, and the VOC found letters of the king to Cirebon, Johor, Palembang and England urging war on the Dutch.¹

He died at Kartasura in 1703 and was succeeded by his only son, Amangkurat III, whose brief reign was consumed by the First Javanese War of Succession against Prince Puger.¹