Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 2/Book 4/Chapter 11
HANNES II.
1769.
HANNES, a man past seventy years of age, made his entry into Gondar the 3d of May 1769. He was brother to Bacuffa, and having in his time escaped from the mountain, and being afterwards taken, his hand was cut off by order of the king his brother, and he was sent back to the place of his confinement.
It is a law of Abyssinia, as we have already observed, derived from that of Moses, that no man can be capable either of the throne or priesthood, unless he be perfect in all his limbs; the want of a hand, therefore, certainly disqualified Hannes, and it was with that intent it had been cut off. When this was objected to him in council, Michael laughed violently, and turned it into ridicule; "What is it that a king has to do with his hands? Are you afraid he shall not be able to saddle his own mule, or load his own baggage? Never fear that; when he is under any such difficulty, he has only to call upon me[1], and I will help him."
Hannes, besides his age, was very feeble in body; and having had no conversation but with monks and priests, this had debilitated his mind as much as age had done his body. He could not be persuaded to take any share in government. The whole day was spent in psalms and prayers; but Ras Michael had brought from the mountain with him two sons, Tecla Haimanout the eldest, a prince of fifteen years of age, and the younger, called George, about thirteen.
Guebra Denghel, a nobleman of the first family in Tigré had married a daughter of Michael by one of his wives in that province. By her he had one daughter, Welleta Selassé, whom Michael in the beginning, while Joas and he were yet friends, had destined to be queen, and to be married to him. Hannes was of the age only to need a Shunnamite; and Welleta Selassé, young and beautiful, and who merited to be something more, was destined as this sacrifice to the ambition of her grandfather. A kind of marriage, I believe, was therefore made, but never consummated. She lived with Hannes some months in the palace, but never took any state upon her. She was a wife and a queen merely in name and idea. Love had in that frozen composition as little share as ambition, and those two great temptations, a crown and a beautiful mistress, could not animate Hæzé Hannes to take the field to defend them. Every possible method was taken by Michael to overcome his reluctance, and do away his fears. All was vain; he wept, hid himself, turned monk, demanded to be sent again to Wechné, but absolutely refused marching with the army.
Michael, who had already seen the danger of leaving a king behind him while he was in the field, and finding Hannes inexorable, had recourse to poison, which was given him in his breakfast; and the Ras, by this means, in less than six months became the deliberate murderer of two kings.
- ↑ What made the ridicule here was, Michael was older than the king, and could not stand alone.