News of his death in a Washington hospital had stunned the nation. His staunch defence and generous financing of the infant republic had made him a national hero. President Suharto and almost the entire cabinet attended the funeral, which had all the trapping of a state occasion, on a scale of pomp rarely seen independent Indonesia. For over sixteen hours, 150,000 people entered the palace gates to honour the Sultan. The people of Jogyakarta, and to a considerable degree the whole nation of Indonesia, revered the Sultan for his symbolism of a dim and distant sovereign past as well as his stout defence of democratic principles. Even though Indonesia was a republic, people still referred to him as raja kita, ‘our King’. The Sultan had in fact possessed a talent for preserving the sacred image of the wise king with all the feudal trappings, while using the modern language of Indonesia and espousing western principles of democracy