Sylvia Brett

Sylvia Leonora, Lady Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak, born "The Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett", (25 February 1885 - 11 November 1971), was the consort to Vyner of Sarawak, last of the White Rajahs.

Early life

Sylvia was born at at No. 1, Tilney Street, Park Lane, [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] , Central London, the second daughter of Reginald Baliol Brett, the 2nd Viscount Esher, KCB. Her mother Eleanor was the third daughter of the Belgian politician and revolutionary Sylvain Van de Weyer and his wife Elizabeth, who was the only child of the great financier Joshua Bates of Barings Bank. Sylvia's paternal grandmother, Eugenie Meyer, was thought to be an illegitimate daughter of Napoleon BonaparteFact|date=January 2008.

Sylvia's early life was somewhat troubled; by the age of 12 she had made two attempts at suicide, the first by eating rotten sardines, and the second by lying naked in the snow. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml "The girl who would be queen", The Daily Telegraph, 2/6/2007] ]

Ranee of Sarawak

She married His Highness Rajah Vyner of Sarawak at St Peter's Church, Cranborne, just before her 26th birthday on 21 February 1911. They first met in 1909 when she joined an all-female choral orchestra, established by Vyner's mother. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml "The girl who would be queen", The Daily Telegraph, 2/6/2007] ] She first visited Sarawak in 1912, [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml "The girl who would be queen", The Daily Telegraph, 2/6/2007] ] where her husband (from 1917) ruled a 40,000 square mile jungle kingdom on the northern side of Borneo with a population of 500,000, an ethnic mix of Chinese, Malays, and the headhunting Dyak. Sylvia was invested with the title of Ranee of Sarawak 24th May 1917, Grand Master of The Most Illustrious Order of the Star of Sarawak (1 August 1941). [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] Rajah Vyner died in 1963.

Sylvia was distraught that her daughter, Leonora, under Islamic law, could not take the throne; as a result she hatched various plots to blacken the name of the heir apparent, Anthony, the Rajah Muda. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml "The girl who would be queen", The Daily Telegraph, 2/6/2007] ]

Richard Halliburton, the celebrated adventurer, met her as he circumnavigated the globe in 1932 with his pilot, Moye Stephens. She became the first woman in Sarawak to fly when the pair gave her a flight in their biplane, the "Flying Carpet". Halliburton narrates the visit in his book of the same name.

She was described by her brother as "a female Iago", and by the Colonial Office as "a dangerous woman, full of Machiavellian schemes to alter the succession, and spectacularly vulgar in her behaviour". She died in Tuffett Cottage, Sandy Lane, St James, Barbados. [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ]

She was the author of eleven books, including "Sylvia of Sarawak" and "Queen of the Head-Hunters" (1970). [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml "The girl who would be queen", The Daily Telegraph, 2/6/2007] ]

Children

She was survived by three daughters:
* Dayang Leonora Margaret, Countess of Inchcape, wife of 2nd Earl of Inchcape (by whom she had a son, Lord Tanlaw, and a daughter), and later wife of Colonel Francis Parker Tompkins (by whom she had a son). [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ]
* Dayang Elizabeth, a RADA educated [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] singer and actress, wife of firstly Harry Roy (with whom she had a son and daughter), [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] secondly, Richard Vidmer until her death. [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0669084/bio Princess Pearl (aka Elizabeth Vyner Brooke)] - IMDb]
* Dayang Nancy Valerie, married, firstly, Robert Gregory, an American wrestler, secondly, Senor José Pepi Cabarro, a Spanish businessman, thirdly, Scot, Andrew Aitken Macnair, and fourthly, Memery Whyatt. She died in Florida and had one son, Stewart Macnair (b. 1952) [ [http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/sarawak5.htm Royal Ark; Sarawak] ] [ [http://www.thepeerage.com/p24156.htm#i241556 The Peerage] ] .

ister

Sylvia's elder sister Dorothy Brett, also known as Brett (1883-1977), went to the Slade School of Art in 1910 and became friends with painter Mark Gertler (1891-1939), and then of salon hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938), living for a while at Garsington Manor.

Ancestors

References

Further reading

*Maurice V. Brett (ed.), "Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher", Vol I: 1870-1903, London, 1934.
*Margaret Brooke, "My Life in Sarawak", 1913.
*"Sylvia of Sarawak: an autobiography", 1936.
*Sylvia, Lady Brooke, "Queen of the Headhunters", 1970.
*Philip Eade, "Sylvia, Queen Of The Headhunters: An Outrageous Englishwoman And Her Lost Kingdom", (352 pages), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007.
**Lynne Truss, review of Eade's book in "The Sunday Times", 17 June 2007.
*Sean Hignett, "Brett: From Bloomsbury to New Mexico, A Biography", London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1984.
*R.H.W. Reece, "The Name of Brooke: The End of White Rajah Rule in Sarawak", 1993.
*S. Runciman, "The White Rajahs: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946", Cambridge University Press, 1960

External links

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/02/smsylvia02.xml An essay on Silvia Brooke] in "The Daily Telegraph" (UK), Saturday 2 June 2007, by Philip Eade.
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp57075 National Portrait Gallery, London] Photographic images of the Brookes by Bassano; Ottoline Morrell; and Paul Tanqueray, 1917 and 1932.