Raja's Return

In the quiet dignity of an office oppo site London's House of Lords, one of the last remaining governments in exile pre pared to return to the jungle. It consisted of the ailing, inactive White Raja of Sarawak, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, the young Raja Muda, and members of the Provisional Government, who eagerly followed the progress of the hard-hitting Australian liberation troops on Borneo {see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS).

In (but not of) the British Empire, oil-rich, rubber-rich Sarawak is an in dependent patch on the northwest rim of Dutch Borneo. Britain's control stops at defense and foreign affairs. For a century Sarawak was the absolute domain of the Brooke dynasty, founded in 1841, when a swashbuckling English adventurer, James Brooke, quelled an insurrection there for the Sultan of Brunei and proclaimed himself Raja.

Head-Hunters & Glamor. Sir Charles who became a constitutional monarch in 1941, has found it even more difficult to maintain discipline over his glamorous family than over his head-hunting subjects. Despite his patient parental plaints that there are no legal princesses on Sarawak, his three daughters continue to be dubbed Princesses Gold, Baba and Pearl. Leonora Margaret (Princess Gold) pleased her father when she became the second wife of the late 2nd Earl of Inch-cape. Less pleased was the Raja when his daughter Elizabeth (Princess Pearl) married Jazz Bandleader Harry Roy, and his youngest daughter, Nancy Valerie (Princess Baba) married Wrestler Bob Gregory, who later divorced her because "she is always somewhere else."

The White Raja, who once organized expeditions into the interior to punish his head-hunting subjects, now putters around his English garden, leaves most governmental affairs to his nephew, good-looking Raja Muda (Heir Apparent) Anthony Brooke.

Anthony Brooke was Raja Muda once before. But when he married a social cipher, Sir Charles questioned his fitness for administrative work. So Anthony's father, Captain Bertram Brooke, became the presumptive Raja. Since then Anthony has been restored to favor. Now, with the Japs on the run and the old Raja engrossed in gardening, it looks as if Anthony will become Sarawak's next White Raja after all.

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