Sir James Brooke was an extraordinary 'eminent' Victorian, whose life
was the stuff of legend.His curious career began in 1841 when he was
caught up in a war in Brunei which had started because a party of local
Dayaks had refused to furl their umbrellas in the presence of the
Sultan. Brooke was an opportunist who, with the Sultan's backing, made
war on the Dayaks tribespeople and eventually found himself ruling over
Sarawak - a kingdom the size of England - as a result. How he achieved
it is a romantic, sometimes horrifying story. Brooke is someone that
George Macdonald Fraser would scarcely dare to invent. Errol Flynn
wanted to play him in a movie, seventy years after his death and his
dynasty is remembered throughout South-East Asia.