A bank vault in Portugal (1) Bibliothèque nationale de France - Paris (2) Britain's Royal Collection (7) British Library (5) British Museum (18) Ethnological Museum - Berlin (1) Hughenden - National Trust (1) Leiden University Libraries (2) Pitt Rivers Museum - Oxford (3) The Cameronians Regimental Museum - Hamilton (1) UCLA Library - Los Angeles (1) Unknown (24) Unnamed buyer (4) Victoria & Albert Museum - London (18) Wellcome Collection - London (2) Lemn Sissay “As Andrew Heavens relates in his vivid new book, ‘The Prince and the Plunder’, they also grabbed Alamayu…” The 1972 print Catalogue of Ethiopian manuscripts of the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine in London says: Here are some of the photos and pictures of Alamayu wearing it – two in Ethiopia soon after the Battle of Maqdala, one on Malta and the rest soon after his arrival in Britain in 1868.

For the first time, Andrew Heavens tells the whole story of Alamayu, from his early days in his father's fortress on the roof of Africa to his new home across the seas, where he charmed Queen Victoria, chatted with Lord Tennyson and travelled with his towering red-headed guardian Captain Speedy. The orphan prince was celebrated but stereotyped and never allowed to go home. The columns, judging from the portions lying about, were apparently in their original state built up, clamped with iron and run with lead. The part on al-muhlikat from an ethical work by Ibrahim b. al-Husayn b. `Ali al-Faradi al-Qadiri (718/1318), GAL S II, 147. CCO V, p. 256 (No. 2660) gives a survey of the contents. CCO 2660 (V, pp. 256-257). See Voorhoeve, Handlist, p. 448. Heavens makes many tenuous claims; footnotes or endnotes would have been preferable to the summary of sources he offers at the book’s end. At Cheltenham, Alamayu “mastered the chief virtues of public school life – the suppression and repression of troubling emotion” – how does he know? Heavens also suggests that Alamayu’s melancholy nature and poor performance at school were due to dyslexia – though he at least adds the caveat that “it is a risky business diagnosing anyone from the distance of 160 years, especially with no medical or other relevant expertise”. Well, quite.What: Gold disc “from the cross on the altar at Magdala” showing the Virgin Mary and infant Christ, bought from Col W J Holt In his recent biography of Alemayehu, The Prince and the Plunder, Andrew Heavens follows the palace’s excuses with the history: the prince was buried outside St George’s chapel, in catacombs, in a named coffin. Queen Victoria had taken an interest in the child since he was brought to her, aged seven, survivor of the Maqdala conflict in which British forces defeated his father, King Tewodros II.

Fundamentally though it is a human story, about a small child cast adrift - about his fall from the mountain-top, to become “one of us”, to know good and evil.For the first time, The Prince and the Plunder tells the whole story of Alamayu, from his early days in his father’s fortress on the roof of Africa to his new home across the seas, where he charmed Queen Victoria, chatted with Lord Tennyson and travelled with his towering red-headed guardian Captain Speedy.The orphan prince was celebrated but stereotyped and never allowed to go home. On one of the last slabs found there is a carved cross, which lends strength to the supposition that the building now exposed was one of the early Christian Churches, but whether it stands on the debris of still older buildings or not I have been unable to determine, as the excavations have scarcely been carried deep enough.

All About History magazine “Andrew Heavens has done an extraordinary thing for British history, which is to tell a story from our not-so-distant past which has been almost unknown to most of us who live in the UK, but is very well known indeed to the people of Ethiopia, whose story is told here. He covers his material with a depth of knowledge and an impressive thoroughness, but with a lightness of touch in the way he tells a story that is, at the same time, profoundly human, deeply political, highly engaging, and which reveals much about our imperial past and how it continues to resonate in our own day. A compelling and essential read!” Prof Richard Pankhurst, AFROMET vice chair, described the six illuminated books as “six of the finest Ethiopian religious manuscripts in existence”. He added: “These were specially selected for Queen Victoria, and are therefore, from the artistic point of view, virtually without equal anywhere in the world.” The [Meqdela] collection includes ceremonial crosses, chalices, processional umbrella tops, weapons, textiles, jewellery and archaeological material, as well as tabots (altar tablets that consecrate a church building that are highly sacred objects within the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition).’’’Extraordinary and thrilling ... This story should be known to every man, woman and child' LEMN SISSAY, author, My Name Is Why Below is his report, as it appeared in the official record of the expedition, compiled by Holland and Hozier. Tewodoros shot himself in the face of defeat, while his young wife, Tirunesh, was to die of disease barely a month later. This left their seven-year-old son, Alamayu, the subject of Andrew Heavens’ worthy if ultimately unsatisfying biography. It starts reasonably well, with the interesting – and thankfully well-documented – tale of Britain’s early engagement with Ethiopia, formerly a repository of fantasies inspired by tales of the Queen of Sheba and Prester John. The Economist “Heavens has produced an exceptionally fascinating, evenly balanced and moving account of Alamayu’s life. While there are scores of books recounting the story of Tewodros and the events at Maqdala, there are precious few biographies of this young prince… and none of them more rewarding to read than this one.“