Dawit II
Dawit II ዳዊት | |
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Ethiopian Orthodox Church |
Dawit II (
A male line descendant of the medieval
Biography
Early reign
In contrast to previous emperors, Dawit had only one wife,
Although she was well into her seventies, the Empress Mother
Eleni sought to neutralize this advantage by dispatching the
We saw the Prester John sitting on a platform of six steps very richly adorned. He had on his head a high crown of gold and silver, that is to say, one piece of gold and another of silver from the top downwards, and a silver cross in his hand; there was a piece of blue taffeta before his face which covered his mouth and beard, and from time to time they lowered it and the whole of his face appeared, and again they raised it. The Prester was dressed in a rich mantle of gold brocade, and silk shirts of wide sleeves. From his knees downwards he had a rich cloth of silk and gold well spread out like a Bishop's apron, and he was sitting in majesty as they paint God the Father on the wall. In age, complexion, and stature, he is a young man, not very black. His complexion might be chestnut or bay, not very dark in color; he is very much a man of breeding, of middling stature; they said that he was twenty-three years of age, and he looks like that, his face is round, the eyes large, the nose high in the middle, and his beard is beginning to grow. In presence and state he fully looks like the great lord that he is.[6]
A follower of his late father, the monk Gebre Andrias slayed Emir Mahfuz of Adal in 1517 about the same time a Portuguese fleet attacked Zeila, a Muslim stronghold, and burned it. Dawit would then proceed to ravage Adal and lay waste to Sultan Muhammad ibn Azhar ad-Din's residence in Dakkar.[7] Contemporaries concluded that the Muslim threat to Ethiopia was finally over, so when the diplomatic mission from Portugal arrived at last, Dawit denied that Mateus had the authority to negotiate treaties, ignoring Eleni's counsels. After a stay of six years, the Portuguese at last set sail and left a governing class who thought they were securely in control of the situation. As Paul B. Henze notes, "They were mistaken."[8]
According to Ethiopian chronicles, two decades into Dawit's ascension, a young man by the name
Ethiopian–Adal war
With the death of Sultan
The Imam's followers were accustomed to making lightning raids on Ethiopian territory, swiftly attacking and quickly returning home; they had no experience in pitched battles, and Ahmad Gragn struggled with numerous desertions.[10]
The Emperor Dawit caught up with Imam Ahmad Gragn's forces, and they engaged in battle on either 7 or 9 March 1529, at the
While not a clear victory for the Imam, this battle still proved to the Imam's followers that they could fight and defeat the Ethiopian army.Imam Ahmad Gragn spent the next two years preoccupied beyond the Awash, but returned to attack Ethiopia in 1531, where he scattered the army under the general Eslamu by firing the first cannon in the Horn of Africa. Dawit was forced to withdraw into the Ethiopian highlands and fortify the passes into Bet Amhara ("the House of Amhara"), leaving the territories to the east and south under the protection of his general Wasan Sagad. However, Wasan Sagad was slain near Mount Busat while fighting Ura'i Utman on 29 July (5 Nahase 1524 A.M.) and his army scattered.
The Imam surprised the Emperor at the
In April 1533, Ahmad once again assembled his troops at
.Both Ethiopia and Dawit suffered heavily from these assaults. The
Later life
During the years he lived as an outlaw in his own realm constantly hounded by Imam Ahmed's soldiers the Malassay,[15] Dawit came to see Queen Eleni's wisdom in reaching out to Europe for help, and he dispatched João Bermudes, who had arrived in Ethiopia with Dom Rodrigo de Lima, to request for military assistance. Bermudez traveled to Lisbon, where he was honorably received by John III of Portugal. The king acknowledged his title of "Patriarch of Ethiopia", which had been officially approved by the Pope. John III also provided him with letters addressed to the Portuguese Viceroy in India, directing the immediate dispatch of ships along with four to five hundred soldiers to assist the Abyssinian king in combating the Muslims.[16]
In 1539, Gragn sent an embassy to Dawit and asked for his daughter in marriage, and pointed out to him that if he refused to do so, there was no one left with whom he could take refuge. The king replied, "I will not give her to you for you are an unbeliever; it is better to fall into the power of the Lord, Whose majesty is as great as His mercy, than into yours." Gragn was furious, and began a pursuit of the king, who wandered from desert to desert in nakedness, suffering from hunger, exhaustion and sickness.[17][18]
When Dawit was in
Dawit was succeeded by his son Gelawdewos, as his son Menas had been captured by Ahmad a year before Dawit died. His release was not secured until 1543, when Queen Seble Wongel exchanged him for the captured son of Bati del Wambara and Ahmed after the Battle of Wayna Daga.[20]
One of Dawit II's younger sons, Yaqob, is said to have stayed behind to hide in the province of Menz in Shewa. Yaqob's grandson Susenyos I defeated his various second cousins in 1604 to become Emperor and started the Gondar line of the Solomonic dynasty. Another grandson started the Shewan line of the Solomonic dynasty.
References
- .
- ISBN 9781442271579.
- ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
- S2CID 143584847.
- ^ Beyene, Solomon Gebreyes (2016). The Chronicle of King Gälawdewos (1540–1559): A Critical Edition with Annotated Translation (PhD). University of Hamburg. p. 184.
- ^ Francisco Alvarez, The Prester John of the Indies translated by C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961), p. 304.
- ^ Ullendorff, Edward (1960). The Ethiopians; an Introduction to Country and People. Oxford University Press. p. 72.
- ^ Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 85.
- ^ Budge, E.A (1828). History Of Ethiopia Nubia And Abyssinia. pp. 327–328.
- ^ As described by Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, Futuh al-Habasa: The conquest of Ethiopia, translated by Paul Lester Stenhouse with annotations by Richard Pankhurst (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003), pp. 68–70.
- ISBN 0972317252.
- ^ R.S. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541–1543, 1902 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), p. xxxvi.
- ^ Futuh, pp. 186–193.
- ^ Futuh, pp. 381–384.
- S2CID 143584847.
- ^ A. Wallace Budge, E. (1828). History Of Ethiopia Nubia And Abyssinia. Vol. 1. Methuen & co. p. 334.
- ^ A. Wallace Budge, E. (1828). History Of Ethiopia Nubia And Abyssinia. Vol. 1. Methuen & co. p. 334.
- ^ Beyene, Solomon Gebreyes (2016). The Chronicle of King Gälawdewos (1540-1559): A Critical Edition with Annotated Translation. Universität Hamburg. p. 185.
- ^ A. Wallace Budge, E. (1828). History Of Ethiopia Nubia And Abyssinia. Vol. 1. Methuen & co. p. 334.
- ^ Castanhoso, Miguel de (1902). Whiteway, R.S. (ed.). The Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 as narrated by Castanhoso. London: Redford Press. p. xxxiv. Retrieved 11 June 2020.