Tuesday, 23 Apr 2024

King faces fresh calls to return Ethiopia’s ‘stolen prince’

King Charles III faces fresh calls to return Prince Alamayu, who is known as Ethiopia’s “stolen prince”. The calls come after the late Queen refused to allow the repatriation of his bones in 2019. A new book has been released, all about the late prince, which had led to renewed calls to return his bones to his motherland.

Prince Alamayu had been bought to Britain following the sudden death of his father, Emperor Tewodros II, in 1868.

Since calls surfaced, regarding his remains, experts have suggested that moving them would be a mistake, also branding it “pointless”.

Royal historian Hugo Vickers told MailOnline that Queen Victoria “generously” took in the prince.

He also deemed Queen Victoria as doing a “great honour” and that “he should remain there because that is what everyone wanted at the time.”

It has also been thought that, if his remains were uncovered, it would mean disturbing others.

Campaigner Alula Pankhurst, who sits on Ethiopia’s cultural restitution committee, said: “Bringing this young man home means unearthing uncomfortable truths that people don’t want to think about.”

His remains were first requested in the 1990s, by the Ethiopian government.

A favourite of Queen Victoria’s, the late monarch wrote about the young boy in her diary.

Writing about the prince, Victoria wrote that he was a “very pretty sight”.

Deeming him a “graceful boy”, she added that he posed “beautiful eyes” and a “nice nose and mouth”.

He then passed away in his sleep in Leeds, aged 18, from pneumonia.

After learning of his tragic death, Victoria called it “too sad”, adding that he “was no happy life [and] full of difficulties of every King.”

The King is now less than one month away from his historic Coronation.

He will be crowned, alongside the Queen Consort, on May 6 in Westminster Abbey.

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