Anna Leonowens Vudhijaya (b. 21 May 1934), stated in a 2001 interview, "King Mongkut was in the monk's hood for 27 years before he was king. He would never have ordered an execution. It is not the Buddhist way." She added that the same Tuptim was her grandmother and had married Chulalongkorn. (He had 36 wives.) While in the United States, Leonowens also earned much-needed money through popular lecture tours. At venues such as the house of Mrs. Sylvanus Reed in Fifty-third Street, New York City, in the regular members' course at Association Hall, or under the auspices of bodies such as
Dan Beach Bradley setting. The boarding schools, while unsuccessful, showed the emphasis put on education in Siam during this period. Bradley advised the royal court to pursue education until his death. As an advocate of education, Bradley had high regard for Anna Leonowens, the teacher of Mongkut's children. Bradley admired the perseverance of Leonowens even though she was not treated with respect from the Siamese. Bradley did admit, however, that Leonowens did not have a significant impact on Siam, an opinion at odds with hers which she recorded in her two volumes of memoirs beginning with "The English Governess at the Siamese Court"