Could a Javanese sovereign appropriate authority to seize previously granted appanages and, in the process, overrule its prohibition set by adat (customary law)? On paper Hamengkubuwana II transformed the appanage institution into an instrument for increasing crown authority. Opposition by the kraton (court) elite was countered through promulgation of royal ordinances. Yet he was apparently not able to make the new order acceptable - It was applied suspiciously rarely in practice and then only to a few appanage holders.

In contrast. successive Franco-Dutch, British East India Company, and the Netherlands East Indies governments acted as if it was indeed a sovereign prerogative; it became the legitimation of their own exercise of unlimited authority upon acquiring sovereignty over the subjected kingdom. The 'sovereign domain' introduced by the second sultan constituted a significant factor in priyayl (bureaucratic nobility) support of Dipanagara in the Java War of 1825-30, as well as the basis of the colonial agrarian system.
Hamengkubuwana 11's experiences during the upheavals brought about by Javanese kingdoms waring among themselves egged on by foreigners in the mid eighteenth century (1746-1755) provoked a life-long ambition to strengthen the kingdom's capacity to repel intruders, foreign or domestic. This brought him into conflict with colonial powers. which accounts for his three reigns. The most productive period followed his coronation in 1792. lasting to December 1810 when he was sacked by the Franco-Dutch regime; a second beginning in October 1811 as a coup d'etat against the government led by his son, was ended by the British East India Company's attack and subsequent fall of Yogyakarta in June 1812. A final period as sultan began in 1826 with his reinstalment by the Netherlands East Indies colonial government in a belated attempt to meet the challenge posed by his grandson. Pangeran Dipanagara. Despite the latter's defeat, mainly by treachery. he became the Republic of Indonesia's first national hero. Hamengkubuwana II's endeavours are not without heroic aspects. But do they qualify him to join his grandson as a Pahlawan Nasional and, ifso, whose?