Buckingham Palace refuses to surrender the bones of an Ethiopian royal who is buried in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
Buckingham Palace has refused to return the body of a 19th-century Ethiopian royal who was buried at Windsor Castle.
A descendent of Prince Alemayehu, an orphan who was adored and financially supported by Queen Victoria and died at the age of 18, has demanding that his remains be repatriated to Ethiopia, according to Mail Online.
Buckingham Palace, on the other hand, has contended that removing the body would have an impact on others buried in the catacombs of St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
The Chapel authorities, according to the Palace, understand the need to honour Prince Alemayehu’s memory, but they also have “the responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed.”
Buckingham Palace refuses to surrender the bones of an Ethiopian royal who is buried in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
After his father, Emperor Tewodros II, committed suicide while British forces besieged his mountain-top palace in northern Ethiopia in 1868, Prince Alemayehu was taken to England.
Queen Victoria admired the orphaned seven-year-old, who was educated at Sandhurst Military Academy. But, unhappily, he died of illness at the age of 18 in 1879 and was buried in catacombs near to Windsor’s St George’s Chapel.
The Queen declined to accept the repatriation of his bones in 2019, but in the aftermath of a new book about his life, protesters have renewed efforts for them to be returned.
Buckingham Palace refuses to surrender the bones of an Ethiopian royal who is buried in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
‘We want his remains returned as a family and as Ethiopians since that is not the nation he was born in,’ one of his relatives, Fasil Minas, told the BBC, adding that it was ‘not acceptable’ for him to be buried in the UK.
‘It is quite unlikely it would be possible to exhume the remains without upsetting the resting place of a considerable number of people in the vicinity [in the catacombs of St George’s Chapel],’ stated a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman.
The palace also has a “responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed,” according to the statement.
Buckingham Palace refuses to surrender the bones of an Ethiopian royal who is buried in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
King Tewodros II, often known as ‘Mad King Theodore,’ attempted to make friends with the British and penned a letter to Queen Victoria in 1855.
Tewodros kidnapped the British consul and several missionaries in a high mountain cell after she failed to respond to that and a subsequent letter.
A British army of roughly 40,000 troops was dispatched to rescue the 44 hostages. They laid siege to Tewodros’ mountain fortress at Maqdala in northern Ethiopia in April 1868 and were victorious.
Tewodros committed suicide as the successful mission came to an end. Alamayu’s mother, Tewodros’ wife, perished on her trip down the mountain, leaving her son an orphan.
Along with the prince, the British took hundreds of cultural and religious treasures, including gold crowns and necklaces.
According to historian Andrew Heavens, this was done to protect them from Tewodros’ adversaries, who were close to Maqdala.
Following his arrival in June 1868, he saw the Queen at her vacation house on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. He was later described as ‘a very gorgeous sight, a graceful boy with wonderful eyes and a fine nose and mouth, but the lips are little thick’ in her diary.
