Who says our Malay Rulers are new? The Malay Rulers had been established long before the portugese came in 1511.Our Malay Rulers are unique too and I would never want to compare our Malay Rulers with the Briton's. And I will never underestimate the events that shaped the Malays rulers as we see today.
Proto-Malays originating from Java began arriving between 1500 BC and 500 BC. There were numerous Malay kingdoms in the 2nd and 3rd century CE—as many as 30 according to Chinese sources.
There are reports of other areas older than Kedah—the ancient kingdom of Gangganegara, around Bruas in Perak, for instance, pushes Malaysian history even further into antiquity. If that is not enough, a Tamil poem, Pattinapillai, of the second century CE, describes goods from Kadaram heaped in the broad streets of the Chola capital; a seventh century Sanskrit drama, Kaumudhimahotsva, refers to Kedah as Kataha-nagari. The Agnipurana also mentions a territory known Anda-Kataha with one of its boundaries delineated by a peak, which scholars believe is Gunong Jerai. Stories from the Katasaritasagaram describe the elegance of life in Kataha.
Most of the history book only goes to the early 15th century, where the Sultanate of Malacca was established under a dynasty founded by Parameswara, a prince from Palembang with bloodline related to the royal home of Srivijaya, who fled from the island Temasek (now Singapore).
The first evidence of Islam in the Malay peninsula dates from the 14th century in Terengganu, but according to the Kedah Annals, the 9th Maharaja Derbar Raja di of Sultanate of Kedah converted to Islam and changed his name to Sultan Muzaffar Shah. Since then there have been 27 Sultans who ruled Kedah.
When Malacca was conquered by Portugal in 1511, the sons of the last Sultan of Malacca established two sultanates elsewhere in the peninsula—the Sultanate of Perak to the north, and the Sultanate of Johor (originally a continuation of the old Malacca sultanate) to the south.
After the fall of Malacca, three nations struggled for the control of Malacca Strait: the Portuguese (in Malacca), the Sultanate of Johor, and the Sultanate of Aceh. This conflict went on till 1641, when the Dutch (allied to the Sultanate of Johor) gained control of Malacca.
Britain established its first colony in the Malay peninsula in 1786 (in a way they cheated the sultan of Kedah to take over Penang)
During the late 19th century, many Malay states decided to obtain British help in settling their internal conflicts. British gunboat diplomacy was employed to bring about a peaceful resolution to civil disturbances caused by Chinese gangsters, and the Pangkor Treaty of 1874 paved the way for the expansion of British influence in Malaya.
