Bæda Mariam succeeded to the throne (as his historian says) against his father’s inclination, after having received much ill usage during the earlier part of his life, of which this was the occasion. His mother took so violent and irregular a longing to see her son king, that she formed a scheme, by the strength of a party of her relations and friends, trusting to the weakness of an old man, to force him into a partnership with his father. Examples of two kings, at the same time, and even in this degree of relation, were more than once to be found in the Abyssinian annals, but those times were now no more. A strong jealousy had succeeded to an unreasonable confidence, and had thrown both the person and pretensions of the heirs-apparent of this age to as great a distance as was possible. The queen, whose name was Sion Magass, or the Grace of Sion, first began to tamper with the clergy, who, though they did not absolutely join her in her views, shewed her, however, more encouragement than was strictly consistent with their allegiance. From these she applied to some of the principal officers of state, and to those about the king, the best affected to her son and his succession. These, aware of the evil tendency of her scheme, first advised her, by every means, to lay it aside; and afterwards, seeing she still persisted, and afraid of a discovery that would involve her accomplices in it, they disclosed the matter to the king himself, who resented the intention so heinously, that he ordered the queen to be beaten with rods till she expired. Her body afterwards was privately buried in a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, not far from Debra Berhan[14]. Nothing had hitherto appeared to criminate the young prince. But it was soon told the king, that, after the death of the queen, her son Bæda Mariam had taken frankincense and wax-tapers from the churches, which he employed, at stated times, in the observation of the usual solemnities over his mother’s grave. The king, having called his son before him, began to question him about what he had heard; while the prince, without hesitation, gave him a full account of every circumstance, glorying in what, he said, was his duty, and denying that he was accountable to any man on earth for the marks of affection which he shewed to his mother.