Pankhurst's corner

Was there a more tragic exile for an Ethiopian –prince or not? Prince Alemayehu Tewodros –taken to Britain as a live part of Maqdalla’s ransacking, died young and heartbroken. As Ethiopia probes the ways in which his remains can be returned, it is timely that Professor Pankhurst brings us details of the Shalespearen tragedy of the young prince. [Capital apologizes for a printing error that omited this page from last week’s issue]

Prince Alemayehu Tewodros and his Grandmother’s Letters

Report has it that Ethiopia is asking Great Britain to return the remains of Emperor Tewodros’s son Prince Alemayehu, who died in 1879, and is buried in St George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, just outside London.
This would seem an appropriate time, dear reader, to share with you two letters written from Ethiopia to England well over a century and a half ago by Alamayahu’s loving maternal grandmother, Wayzaro Laqiyye.

A Tragic Life
Alamayahu, who was only seven or eight years years old at the time of his father’s dramatic suicide at Maqdala in 1868, had a tragic life. Taken to England by the British army which had defeated his father in battle, he was later sent to India, before being taken back again to Britain. He was at one stage of his short life treated like an Indian prince, riding on horseback wherever he wishes , but was later subjected to the discipline – and cold weather! - of a British public school.
 He was at the same time remembered with affection, as we shall see, by his grandmother Laqiyye, an intensely pious – but apparently also enlightened - woman.
 
Grandma Laqiyye
In January 1872, some three and a half years after Alamayahu’s departure from Ethiopia, Grandma Laqiyye dispatched two historic letters to Britain. They were written in Amharic, and were characteristically eliptical, or remarkably brief, in style.
One of these letters was addressed to Queen Victoria; the other was to Alamayahu, who must by then have been little over ten years old.
Laqiyye, it is interesting to note, refers to her daughter by two alternative names. When addressing Queen Victoria she calls her daughter by her regal name, “Teru Warq” i.e. Good Gold, but to her grandson Alamayahu she uses the name by which she was previously known, “Teru Nash”, i.e. You are Good.
Letter to Queen Victoria
 
Laqiyye’s letter to Victoria was a moving message in which she sadly observed that Alamayahu would no longer remember her as his “mother” – but would think of Victoria in that role.
 The letter opened, like so many royal epistles from Emperor Tewodros and other rulers, with pious reference to Almighty God.
It thus began:
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost: One God”.
Then, explaining who she was - and her relationship to young Alamayahu (whom she refers to by his title of Dajazmach) - Laqiyye continues by declaring that the letter was:
“Sent by Woyzero Laqiyye, mother of Etege [i.e. Queen[ Teru Warq, grandmother of Dajazmach Alamayahu”.
Laqiyye then turned to Queen Victoria, and sent conventional greetings both to her and to her realm, Assuming (quite rightly) that the British monarch would not be able read the letter herself, but would have to have it read (or translated) to her, she continued:
“May it reach the English Queen: You, reader, salute her for me! May the Saviour of the World give you health on my behalf. May he extend your kingdom. May he destroy your enemies”
The letter then turned to Laqiyye’s own tribulations. It recalls and that three of her male relatives – whom she refers to only by their title, i.e. dajazmachs, had then recently passed away. That in addition to the death of her own daughter, Alamayahu’s mother Etege Teru Warq. These four deaths thus left her virtually alone.
She wrote:
 “Three Dajazmachs and fourthy the Etege [i.e. Alamauahu’s mother Teru Warq] having died to my grief: only Alamayahu is left to me”.
Laqiyye then touches upon Alamayahu’s fate: how his father (Tewodros) had committed suicide; how his mothrer (Teru Warq) had died; and how the young Prince had himself been taken by the British army to Britain, and had become in a sense Queen Victoria’s ward.
The letter begs Victoria to look after him well, and expresses Laqiyye’s sadness at losing her grandson – and, in the nature of things, losing also his affection:
She writes:
“May you [Queen Victoria] protect your charge [i.e. Alamayahu] for me. When God took up his father and his mother [i.e. Tewodros and Teru Warq], He [God] gave him to you [i.e. Victoria]. I will be among the number who will die if I do not see him. You he calls ‘my mother’; but me he does not call ‘my mother’, because I have not brought him up”,
That so simply yet so sadly said, Laqiyye concludes with one final appeal:.
“May you bring him up, doing so for God’s name”.
Letter to Dajazmach Alamayahu
Laqiyye’s letter to Alamayahu, which was also very brief, omitted the customary reference to the Trinity, and began:
 “May this word reach Dajazmach Alamayahu.
“Sent by Wayzero Laqiyye, mother of Etege Teru Nash”.
Laqiyye then, somewhat unexpectedly, adds:
 “I am is in your mother’s country, at Dajazmach Webe’s church”.
This, we should explain, was the large church of Maryam, situated at Darasge, in the high Samen mountains.
Then, most affectionately, she asks after Alamayahu’s health. She expresses her sadness at being separated for so long from her grandson; complains that he had not written to her; and expresses her hope that they might one day meet again.
No stranger, it would appear, to modern ways, she also asks her grandson to send her a portrait – perhaps a photo? - of himself.
She writes:
“My child, my dear, how are you, really?
“Ever since we parted, up to today, why do you not send me a letter? Whilst I die in grief and mourning, I have no other son, no other hope, than you,
“Now, quickly, send me a letter, sending me your likeness in a picture so that I may look at it constantly.
“May Christ enable us to meet, Amen”.
Statescraft
Laqiyye, who was no stranger to statecraft – and had something of a world view, then offers her grandson an interesting piece of political advice, saying:  
“Be friendly towards the English Queen, the Russian King, the French King, towards all kings, send letters”.
Laqiyye, we may note, was evidently unaware that Emperor Napoleon III had been overthrown, and that France was by then a Republic,
The letter turns in conclusion to Alamayahu’s position in Ethiopian society – and, without mentioning Tewdoros by name, seems to suggest that his son should continue his father’s policy of reform – by bringing enlightenment to the people of Abyssinia, whom, Laqiyye complains, had become “blind”.
She thus continues:
“All the people of Abyssinia are awaiting you, are desirous of you. Be wise, open the eyes of the people of Abyssinia, for they have become blind; open up science for them; let them not remain blind as they now are/”.
And the letter concludes by giving the traditional Ethiopian system of dating (which we may discuss, dear reader, on another occasion), stating that that letter was:
“Written in the Era of John, in Terr, on the 4th day”.
And then, it is interesting to note, three Ethiopian scholars at Derasghe add a postscript to the letter, sending their greetings – and expressing their hope too of seeing Alamayahu again.
They write:,:
“ Walda Mika’el, Alaqa Walda Giyorgis [and] Alaqa Afawarq say to you:
‘“Now. , How really are you, as much as of Heaven as of Earth”
“-God has blessed you for us!
“ May God enable us to meet!”
What happened to this Letter?
We do not know whether Alamayahu ever received this letter (which is now preserved in the British Library, among its India Office records).
What we do know is that Alamayahu almost certainly could not read it. It had been his mother’s wish (as stated by Queen Victoria’s Special Envoy, Hornuzd Rassam) that her beloved son should “continue with his Amharic studies”. This wish was, however, studiously ignored by the British Government.
Alamayahu was thus something of a lost soul. So, at least, was the opinion of Queen Victoria. When he died, in 1879, at the age of nineteen, she wrote in her diary that she was “very grieved and shocked to hear… that good Alamayou had passed away… It is too sad. All alone in a strange country, without seeing a relative or person belonging to him, so young and so good”.
She added, however: “for him one cannot repine”, for “his was no happy life, full of difficulties of every kind, and he was so sensitive, thinking that people stared at him because of his colour, that I fear he would never have been happy”.
Never Forgot His Ethiopian Heritage
Alamayahu never forgot his Ethiopian heritage. Towards the end of his short life he expressed a desire to return to his native land. His request was, however, rejected by Sir Stratford Nortcote, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was financially responsible for the young man’s upkeep. Northcote wrote, as we see from a record in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (RA P19/92B) that “going to Abyssinia was out of the question”.
Will this ban apply to his bones today, over a century later?
It would be unfortunate if the British authorities, who refused to allow Alamayahu to return to Ethiopia during his life-time, should now refuse his country’s request for the repatriation of his bones.
Pessimists assert that London may claim that Alamayahu’s bones are lost – and cannot be found. That would be ironic, for it was the British Government’s untoward loss of one of Emperor Tewodros’s letters which lay at the heart of the that monarch’s original quarrel with Great Britain.
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In any case we can now always rely on DNA to establish the true identity of the remains – as a sample of Tewodros’s hair is attached to one of his letters currently preserved in the National Army Museum in London (NAM 5910-71-1).