Captain Speedy, sporting an Ethiopian fur cloak, sits for his photograph on the Isle of Wight. It is 1868 and he has just returned from Britain’s punitive “expedition” to Abyssinia. Among his trophies are the lion’s mane shield propped against his chair, and the barefoot boy on his knee. This is Prince Alemayehu, aged seven.
The prince’s father has killed himself rather than submit to the British. His mother has died before the journey to England. Queen Victoria will take this kidnapped child as a godson, send him to public school in a boater, and eventually arrange for him to be buried at Windsor Castle when he dies of pleurisy at the age of 18. Ethiopia has asked for the return of Alemayehu’s remains. All it has received, so far, is a lock of his hair.
