It must here be observed that, with respect to the period of this remarkable reign, the European and Malayan authorities are considerably at variance, the latter assigning to it something less than thirty solar years, and placing the death of Iskander Muda in December 1636.  The Annals further state that he was succeeded by sultan Ala-eddin-Mahayat-shah, who reigned only about four years and died in February 1641.  That this is the more accurate account I have no hesitation in believing, although Valentyn, who gives a detail of the king’s magnificent funeral, was persuaded that the reign which ended in 1641 was the same that began in 1607.  But he collected his information eighty years after the event, and as it does not appear that any European whose journal has been given to the world was on the spot at that period, the death of an obscure monarch who died after a short reign may well have been confounded by persons at a distance with that of his more celebrated predecessor.  Both authorities however are agreed in the important fact that the successor to the throne in 1641 was a female.  This person is described by Valentyn as being the wife of the old king, and not his daughter, as by some had been asserted; but from the Annals it appears that she was his daughter, named Taju al-alum; and as it was in her right that Maghayat-shah (certainly her husband), obtained the crown, so upon his decease, there being no male heir, she peaceably succeeded him in the government, and became the first queen regent of Achin.  The succession having thenceforward continued nearly sixty years in the female line, this may be regarded as a new era in the history of the country.  The nobles finding their power less restrained, and their individual consequence more felt under an administration of this kind than when ruled by kings (as sometimes they were with a rod of iron) supported these pageants, whom they governed as they thought fit, and thereby virtually changed the constitution into an aristocracy or oligarchy.  The business of the state was managed by twelve orang-kayas, four of whom were superior to the rest, and among these the maharaja, or governor of the kingdom, was considered as the chief.  It does not appear, nor is it probable, that the queen had the power of appointing or removing any of these great officers.  No applications were made to the throne but in their presence, nor any public resolution taken but as they determined in council.  The great object of their political jealousy seems to have been the pretensions of the king of Johor to the crown, in virtue of repeated intermarriages between the royal families of the two countries, and it may be presumed that the alarms excited from that quarter materially contributed to reconcile them to the female domination.  They are accordingly said to have formed an engagement amongst themselves never to pay obedience to a foreign prince, nor to allow their royal mistress to contract any marriage that might eventually lead to such a consequence.* At the same time, by a new treaty with Johor, its king was indirectly excused from the homage to the crown of Achin which had been insisted upon by her predecessors and was the occasion of frequent wars.