Buckingham Palace has rejected a request to return the stays of a teenage Ethiopian prince who was buried at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle greater than 140 years in the past.
Prince Alemayehu was the one reputable son of Tewodros II, Emperor of Abyssinia, who killed himself in April 1868 after he was defeated by British troops on the battle of Magdala.
Following his father’s loss of life, the seven-year-old prince was delivered to the UK by military officer and explorer Tristram Charles Sawyer Speedy and so they lived collectively on the Isle of Wight, in line with the Royal Collection Trust.
Other studies stated the kid, who additionally misplaced his mom at a younger age, was captured by the British.
The orphaned prince was offered to Queen Victoria who took an important curiosity within the baby and infrequently talked about the boy, also called Alamayou, in her diaries.
When he died in 1879 of pleurisy – irritation of the tissue between the lungs and rib cage – on the age of simply 18, Queen Victoria was deeply upset and at her request, he was buried on the chapel.
She remarked in her journal: “Very grieved & shocked to hear by telegram, that good Alamayou had passed away this morning. It is too sad! All alone, in a strange country, without a single person or relative belonging to him […] Everyone is sorry.”
Now his household has requested his stays be returned to Ethiopia.
“We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in,” one in every of his descendants, Fasil Minas, advised the BBC.
“It was not right” for him to be buried within the UK, he stated.
But a Buckingham Palace spokesperson stated eradicating his stays might have an effect on others buried within the catacombs of the chapel.
“It is very unlikely that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity,” they stated.
‘Responsibility to protect the dignity of the departed’
The palace assertion additionally stated the Dean and Canons of Windsor are “very sensitive” to the necessity to honour Prince Alemayehu’s reminiscence, however that in addition they had “the responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed”.
“It is therefore, with regret, not possible to agree to the request.”
It additionally stated that lately the royal family had “accommodated requests from Ethiopian delegations to visit” the chapel.
Source: information.sky.com”
