There has been a consistent blitz of royal family "expos" in the news lately; like the crowning of the newest king of England, His Majesty, King Charles III, and the numerous rumours of feud and scandals within the royal family and royal family ties. Obviously, this is the age of fast information dispensation and the advent of King Charles III is also clearly a determination to float the royal family through this new phase in Great Britain's historic monarchy. However, one must be careful to ignore the paparazis and propaganda, and focus on the real things that are affecting real people as a result of the traditions and undying will to propagate and preserve the artifacts and legacies of the great British monarchy.
Congratulations to the great new king, His Royal Majesty, King Charles III, who now sits as the head of a monarchy that has spanned over a thousand and two hundred years. The British monarchy is indeed a clear example to follow for people who wish to uphold their traditions and culture. And no doubt, the events celebrating the British monarchy these recent times, have been clearly designed to include or exclude, to position the new royal family as being in touch with the modern times, while at the same time, never letting go of some old policies that clearly cut against the sensitivities of this new times. One of these royal insensitivities and insult is the case of the Late Prince Alemayehu of Ethiopia.
READ THIS: WHY WOULD ANYONE HATE SUCH A CHARMING AND LOVELY WOMAN...?
Prince Alemayehu's father, Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia reigned from 1855 to 1868. He became a very erratic ruler towards the end of his reign as a result of having lost his beloved wife Empress Tewabech, without bearing a heir with her. He was so fearful of loosing his empire to his Arabian Moslem enemies that he wrote a letter to the late Queen Victoria of England, a co-Christian, proposing a marriage between them so that both of their kingdoms would fight the rise of the Arabs in Africa, for a triumph for Christianity.
Emperor Tewodros II, saw his proposal to Queen Victoria as a normal and very reasonable process to make an alliance with a powerful ruler who had been sending emissaries to him, showering him with treasurable gifts like guns and gun powder to fight his enemies. The emperor figured that with the two empires combined, they would take over the world together, for Christians, by wars, aggression or evangelism. But the British diplomats whom the emperor depended on to deliver his marriage proposal to the Queen, hid the Emperor's letter for years while lying to the emperor that Queen Victoria would soon deliver a response to his marriage proposal.
EXTRA STORIES: DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ABOUT THIS MAN...
When the Emperor found out that he was being taken for a fool by the British diplomats, he had them all arrested, and he also arrested everyone else sent from England to plead for the release of the diplomats. He seemed to be poised to stop at nothing to fulfill his fantasy of a marriage with Queen Victoria of England. Clearly having no other options, Queen Victoria sent a reply to Emperor Tewodros' marriage proposal. That message was delivered in 1868, through the commander of a military expedition put together to free up British and European citizens taken hostages by Emperor Tewodros II in Ethiopia. Overpowered and fearing humiliation, Emperor Tewodros II took his own life ironically with a hand gun he had received as a gift from Queen Victoria.
Overjoyed, British soldiers sacked and looted Emperor Tewodros' palaces, carting away all moveable treasures and prisoners of war that they could manage. Among the prisoners of war, were a young Prince Alemayehu and his mother Empress Tiruwork Wube, together with servants and maidens. Prince Alemayehu's mother was so frail and distraught that she was not able to survive the journey to England. So, at 7 years old, Prince Alemayehu became an orphan, and his short and sad life immediately began to unfold.
Queen Victoria did not want to marry Prince Alemayehu's father, but she fell in love with the young prince after meeting him as a prisoner of war in England.
Prince Alemayehu was unhappy every where his captors took him. He missed his mother, father, his royal life, and most of all the tropical open landscapes of his native Ethiopia. He stood out like a sore thumb in an England that did not have many people that looked like him. When Queen Victoria, the woman who had brought down his father's empire instead of marrying his father, set eyes on the prince, she felt love and pity for the young prisoner of war. The Queen decided immediately to take up the responsibilities of upkeep and education of the young Ethiopian prince turned prisoner of war. But Prince Alemayehu could not find any happiness in England. After cadets at the Royal Sandhurst Military Academy bullied Prince Alemayehu, his lonely fate was sealed as he opted to not be in groups with British people any longer, settling to get his "miseducation" through private tutors..
EXTRA VIDEO: SEE WHY THESE CHILDREN SURVIVED THE 2022 FLOODS IN NIGERIA
Prince Alemayehu's misery and depression did not abet despite the measures being taken to shield him from the British public. His pleas to be sent back home to his native Ethiopia fell on all but deaf ears. The young African prince dreaded the cruel British winter weathers and dark cloudy skies. Over the years, his frail and fragile health began to deteriorate quickly. The guardians who were assigned to watch over the African prince did not know how to cheer him up an longer. In their eagerness to try, they often found out that they were making fools of themselves by mimicking moves and dressings of tribal Ethiopian warriors but in white skins.
Finally in 1879 at the age of 18, Prince Alemayehu's lungs gave up and the young prince died. Without the blessings and participation of anyone from Ethiopia, Queen Victoria ordered that the teenage prince be buried at St. Georges Chapel in Windsor, no doubt, as evidence of one of the greatest conquests of the British empire, with these letters written on the tombstone of Prince Alemayehu: "I was a stranger and ye took me in". But it was more like "I was a prince, an aspiring heir to the kingdom of Ethiopia, but ye destroyed my kingdom, took me away from my homeland as a prisoner of war, and allowed me to die in misery and penury".
The Late Prince Alemayehu of Ethiopia (Left), with his guardian Captain Speedy who was responsible for kidnapping the prince from Ethiopia and bringing him to England to die after a very unhappy and miserable childhood.
For over 150 years, Ethiopian authorities have been pleading with Buckingham palace to repatriate the dead body of their prince so that he would be buried with the honors that he deserves in his native country. But the British monarchy has refused to heed these pleas as if the British monarchy would seize to exist if Prince Alemayehu were to be exhumed from his cold grave and sent back to Ethiopia for a proper and befitting reburial.
The British government said that Ethiopians could come to England to pay their respects to their dead prince, allowing Emperor Haile Selassie to add additional Amharic writings to honor Prince Alemayehu in his St. Georges Chapel grave site in Windsor. Since then, subsequent Ethiopian governments have not relented in pleading with the British monarchy to send back their kidnapped prince together with all the treasures stolen from Ethiopia after British soldiers killed the prince's father. Now with King Charles III at the helms of the British monarchy, the whole world is waiting to see if this new humane, modern and sensitive king would be the one to change the curse of Prince Alemayehu which has been inflicting the British royal family since, without the insight and intervention of an African spiritualist to let them know so.
