ZA DENGHEL.
From 1595 to 1604.
SERTZA DENGHEL had several daughters, one of whom was married to Kefla Wahad, governor of the province of Tigré, and another to Athanasius, governor of Amhara. These two were the most powerful men then in the kingdom. The empress and her two sons-in-law saw plainly, that the succession of Za Denghel, a man of ripe years, possessed of every requisite for reigning, was to exclude them from any share in government but a subaltern one, for which they were to stand candidates upon their own merits, in common with the rest of the nobility.
Accordingly, no sooner was Sertza Denghel dead, perhaps some time before, but a conspiracy was formed to change the order of succession, and this was immediately executed by order of this triumvirate, who sent a body of soldiers and seized Za Denghel, and carried him close prisoner to
