Amid growing calls that the British Royal Family return jewels and artifacts that were once seized in the name of imperialism, Buckingham Palace says it will not be returning the remains of a teenage prince to Ethiopia.
There has been a repeated and ongoing request to repatriate the remains of Prince Dejatch Alemayehu of Abyssinia, who was taken from his home — an area that includes modern-day Ethiopia — at just seven years of age and died as a teenager in England.
However, it’s reported the palace has declined the request, saying that exhuming the prince’s remains at Windsor Castle could disturb the remains of others buried nearby.
Prince Alemayehu, a claimed descendant of the biblical King Solomon, was taken to England in 1868 after British soldiers looted his father’s mountain fortress during the Battle of Magdala. His father, Emperor Tewodros II, took his own life following the battle, refusing to become a prisoner of the British.
Despite his orphan status eliciting sympathy from Queen Victoria, reports from the time paint a grim, unhappy and lonely childhood for a prince removed from his home and loved ones. He was supported financially by the Crown, and attended elite schools, but died of pleurisy at the age of 18.
