King Trilok's Phra Aiyakan Tamnaeng Na Phonlaruan Phra Aiyakan Tamnaeng Na Thahan Huamuang and Kot Montien ban (Law of the Civil Hierarchy, the Laws of the Military of 1454 and the Palatine Law of 1458) are commonly used by historians as blue-prints to characterize the pattern of the administrative system of ancient Ayudhya and to evaluate its degree of centralization from the 15th century onward. Trilok's pat tern of provincial hierarchies and Palatine Law has been understood to mean that regional rulers whose ancestors had ruled over independent principalities were unwilling replaced by members of the central dynasty sent by the king after their region had been annexed and made part of Ayudhya. As a result their autonomy completely perished as in the case o Sukhothai. In my opinion, the reforms of King Trilok did not remove the autonomy of the regional governors. In actual practice, the king at the capital often had to make a compro mise by selecting provincial governors from the family or families of their own muang (city). In the latter half of the 17th century La Loubere, the French ambassador to King Narai's court, observed that the governorships of muang tended to be hereditary and because of this "it is no difficult matter for some of these Governors, and especially the most powerful