Royal Profile: Princess Elizabeth of Toro

With the often traumatic history that most African countries have gone through over the years, the ranks of African royalty have produced some remarkable figures with very diverse and colorful backgrounds. Certainly one such individual is Princess Elizabeth Bagaaya of Toro, Toro being one of the subsidiary nations of Uganda. During her life she has gained a level of fame around the world for her kind nature, stunning appearance and exceptional intellect, breaking all sorts of new ground in the process. She was born Princess Elizabeth Christobel Edith Bagaaya in 1936 to Lieutenant Sir George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III or King George Rukidi III and Lady Kezia Rukidi in 1936. Her father was the eleventh king or Omukama of Toro from 1928 to 1965. Her mother, Lady Kezia Byanjeru Abwooli was a daughter of a senior tribal chief named Nikodemo Kakoro. Her original title was Omubiitokati which roughly translates to princess. During her childhood the Kingdom of Toro was at the height of its prestige as part of the British Empire and the Princess had many opportunities previously unknown to girls like her, even royal ones.

She attended a local elementary school before going on to Gayaza High School in Buganda, a prestigious boarding school for girls. After graduating she was sent to England to the Sherborne School for Girls where she felt the pressure of being the only Black student. This motivated her to study harder and push for success as she felt that her performance, as the only Black student, would reflect on all those like her. She sufficiently proved herself that within one year she was accepted to Girton College in Cambridge, only the third African woman to ever attend the institution. She graduated in 1962 with a law degree and in 1965 became the first East African woman to be admitted to the English Bar. She was successful working lawyer but that same year was called back to Africa by the death of her father. She was present at the enthronement of her brother Rukirabasaiia Patrick David Matthew Koboyo Olimi VII as the twelfth Omukama of Toro at which time she received the title of Batebe or ‘Princess Royal’. In the traditional hierarchy, this made her the highest ranking woman in the kingdom and a close confidant of her brother the king.

However, this was a troubled time for Uganda as the exhilaration many felt with the end of colonialism and the hope of a new future turned into a downward spiral of intrigue, infighting and conflict. Upon obtaining independence King Frederick Mutesa II of Buganda became the ceremonial leader of the tribal kingdoms as the first President of Uganda with the untrustworthy Milton Obote as prime minister. Soon Obote was plotting to seize power for himself and in collusion with the commander of the army, General Idi Amin, he launched an attack on the palace, forcing “King Freddie” (as he was affectionately known) to flee the country. Obote became president and in 1967 abolished all the traditional, subsidiary tribal kingdoms of Uganda. Princess Elizabeth was afraid her brother would be killed in the ensuing turmoil but, thankfully, he managed to escape to London. Threatened by the political establishment in her own country, Princess Elizabeth traveled to the United States, moved to New York at the suggestion of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and quickly made a career for herself as an actress and model. Her star rose rapidly and soon she was being featured on the covers of Vogue and Harpers. She was also featured in such films as “Sheena” and “Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease” which was her first starring role.

Princess Elizabeth had obtained great fame in America, but her royal roots gave her an urge to serve her native country. During her time away President Obote had been overthrown in a military coup led by General Idi Amin and in 1971 he issued a special invitation to Princess Elizabeth to return to Uganda and serve as an ambassador to the world for her country. In those early days hopes for a better future were high and the Princess returned but was soon abroad again after being appointed by Amin to serve as Uganda’s ambassador to the United Nations. Idi Amin wanted to put the best possible face on his regime and his appointment of Princess Elizabeth was part of that plan. In 1974 Amin made Princess Elizabeth his Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, it quickly became more and more obvious to people in and outside of the country that Idi Amin was a bloodthirsty tyrant and possibly out of his mind.

Princess Elizabeth determined to have nothing more to do with Idi Amin or his government, which of course the dictator took as an act of betrayal. For a time the Princess was in great danger and fear for her life, not always knowing who she could trust or who might be coerced into acting against her. Yet, unlike a great many of her fellow Ugandans, the Princess remained alive and managed to escape to Kenya in February of 1975. From there she moved to Vienna and finally to London. After years of his nightmarish rule, Idi Amin was overthrown in a coup and the princess was invited back to Uganda to help oversee their first free national elections since the fall of King Freddie. Still wanting to help her people, in spite of everything she had been through, Princess Elizabeth came back. However, things did not change much for the better. The original author of the country’s misfortunes, President Obote, gained power again and began taking retribution on his political enemies in a campaign of revenge. Princess Elizabeth and her boyfriend Prince Nyabongo managed to escape to London in 1980 and were married the following year.

In 1985 President Obote was brought down by another military coup and though conditions in Uganda did not immediately improve, the situation at least became more stable so that progress could be made. By then a respected figure in her own country and around the world, the next year Princess Elizabeth was made ambassador to the United States, serving in that post until 1988. Sadly, in 1989, her husband Prince Nyabongo was killed in a plane crash. After that, she devoted much of her time to charity and stayed away from politics. However, after the end of the dictatorship she had provided invaluable assistance in the restoration of her brother and the other sub-national kingdoms. So many people had been killed, particularly among the tribal elders and chiefs, that few people knew anything about the traditions and protocol of the old monarchies and the Princess helped see that all was done properly and that the ceremonies were set down for future generations.

After the death of her brother King Olimi VII in 1995, Princess Elizabeth was one of the guardians of his young son, the new King of Toro and she has helped in his upbringing as well as the continued reconstruction of the Kingdom of Toro and the subsidiary monarchies of Uganda. Finally returning to national service, Princess Elizabeth has been the Ugandan ambassador to Germany and the Vatican before her most recent appointment as High Commissioner for Uganda in Nigeria. She published a book about her eventful life called “Elizabeth of Toro: The Odyssey of an African Princess”. Her story is a remarkable one with many ups and downs, from the heights of being a Princess Royal, Uganda’s first female lawyer, a successful actress, supermodel, minister and diplomat as well as being on many occasions in the greatest danger because of her heritage and political positions. Through it all though she has remained devoted to her country, her people and their traditional culture, truly an example to all.

Video: King Freddie of Uganda, 1942

Monarch Profile: King Mutesa II of Buganda

The man known affectionately as “King Freddie” was born Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II on November 19, 1924 at the home of Sir Albert Cook in Makindye, Kampala in the British protectorate of Uganda, part of what was then generally known as British East Africa. He was the fifth son of Sir Daudi Chwa II, KCMG, KBE, Kabaka or King of Buganda, the largest of the kingdoms in Uganda. His mother was Lady Irene Drusilla Namaganda of the Nte clan. His grandfather had been deposed by the British and his father had inherited the throne when he was only one year old. Mutesa II, like his father, attended the highly regarded King’s College Budo as a boy and had a traditional as well as modern education. He was only fifteen when his father died and he inherited the throne of the Kingdom of Buganda on November 22, 1939. His reign as Kabaka was formally proclaimed at Mengo Palace just outside the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Due to his age he originally reigned in cooperation with a regency council.

On his eighteenth birthday in 1942 he was formally inaugurated as the thirty-fifth king of Buganda with full royal powers (such as they were) at Buddo Hill after which he went to England to finish his education at Magdalene College in Cambridge. While there he joined the University Officer Training Corps and was later given a commission as a captain in the elite Grenadier Guards. In the later half of the 1940’s Uganda went through a period of upheaval as the people protested against the idea of creating a federation of the three countries of British East Africa. Africans feared this would endanger the rights they enjoyed by coming under the rule of the predominately European government of Kenya, effectively making the federation an East African version of Rhodesia. Protests were mounted against the Royal Governor of Uganda, the local government and even the king as tribes which had been granted autonomy by the British felt this would be threatened by federation.

Despite being the target of some of these protests, King Mutesa II actually agreed with them and opposed the idea of a federation. Against the wishes of Sir Andrew Cohen, the British Governor of Uganda, King Mutesa II called for the secession of Buganda from the rest of the country if the federation idea went forward. Ironically enough, most of the people in Buganda felt safer being under the direction of the Foreign Office in London rather than the Kenyan government in Nairobi. Feeling they had no other option the traditional parliament formally called for independence from the rest of Uganda in 1953 with the full support of King Mutesa II. Sir Andrew Cohen responded by using his own forces to have the King deposed and swiftly removed from the country, sending him into exile in London, accusing him of being an obstacle to the plan for transition from a British protectorate to full independence.

This was not true of course, the King was not against independence, but was against the proposed federation. Cohen, a Jew who was certainly opposed to racism, had done a similar job with the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. His idea was that the version of “White” rule practiced in places like Rhodesia and Kenya was preferable to that of South Africa and he was trying to unite as many British African countries as possible against that method. However, removing the King was exactly the wrong thing to do as he was faced with the immediate opposition and even hostility of the entire population who demanded that “King Freddie” be given back to them. With no one even willing to work with him, Governor Cohen at last had to agree and negotiated the return of the King to Kampala on October 17, 1955 in a new constitutional monarchy for Buganda with an elected parliament but remaining within the country of Uganda.

In 1962 Uganda became fully independent from Great Britain and King Mutesa II played a key role in this as the leader of the largest semi-autonomous state within the federation of Uganda. The leading political figure was the radical nationalist Milton Obote of the Uganda People’s Congress. He formed a government in coalition with the Buganda monarchist party Kabaka Yekka (“The King Only”) and became the first prime minister. King Mutesa II was accorded the honor of being the first President of Uganda. The country was republican on the larger federal level but retained traditional tribal monarchies on the sub-national level. As king of the largest sub-national group it was only natural that “King Freddie” become the first Ugandan president. It was though a largely ceremonial position and political power was quickly concentrated in the hands of Prime Minister Obote. Nonetheless, the presidency of King Mutesa II was the most happy and peaceful period Uganda has known since independence. Yet, it was all too short as trouble began bubbling up quickly.

The coalition of the Uganda People’s Congress and the Kabaka Yekka soon began to come apart. The UPC accused the monarchist party of favoring only the interests of their own tribal nation and of stocking the government with their own people. There was some truth in this but it was only because Kampala was located in their territory and, as a result, more of their people were educated and qualified for government service. The real reason, of course, was that Milton Obote was envious of the position of the King and wanted the presidency for himself. As the parties grew apart so did the King-President and his Prime Minister who were frequently at odds. The coalition ended in 1964 and things quickly spiraled out of control. Obote was challenged in his own party and after brutally suppressing his opposition suspended the constitution and declared himself President of Uganda in February of 1966.

King Mutesa II stated, quite correctly, that this violated the agreement by which Buganda had remained a part of Uganda and thus, as King, reasserted the independence of his kingdom and ordered Obote to leave his capital city. Knowing this would probably be easier said than done he also appealed to the United Nations to intervene, but of course, there was no time for that. In one of the great acts of republican betrayal on the African continent, Obote rallied his military supporters and launched an armed coup against the President of Uganda, “King Freddie”. Declaring him a traitor, Obote sent an armed column led by his right-hand-man General Idi Amin to besiege Mengo Palace. Loyal monarchists rushed to the defense of their king and did their best to sabotage the advance of the army but it was to no avail. They killed hundreds of people storming the palace and King Mutesa II and a few surviving royal guards only barely managed to escape and flee into Burundi.

Major General Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II, KBE, as he was formally known in England, was granted asylum in the United Kingdom and spent the rest of his life in exile there. Obote enacted a new constitution in 1967 that abolished the traditional monarchies and he set up a brutal, leftist dictatorship. The King wrote his autobiography and on November 21, 1969 died under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was given as suicide by alcohol poisoning though this remains highly questionable and many believe the King was assassinated by agents of Obote. Without his leadership, Uganda went downhill rapidly. Obote was eventually overthrown by a military coup led by Idi Amin who became dictator of Uganda. In 1971 he arranged for the body of King Mutesa II to be returned home and gave him a full state funeral. As we know, he went on to kill hundreds of thousands of Ugandans before being overthrown himself by Obote who was overthrown again by another military coup in due course. It was after that time, in 1988 that Ronald Mutebi II, the son of Mutesa II, returned to Uganda and was proclaimed Kabaka of Buganda in the traditional way in 1993 following the restoration of the sub-national monarchies.

US Nurse Africa's Latest Monarch

The Republic of Uganda, as most monarchists know, has several ceremonial monarchs reigning on the tribal level. Now, they have one more. Charles Wesley Mumbere was working as a nurse's aide in the United States, no one knowing anything about his ancestry or that for the last few years he had been calling on the Ugandan government to give him official recognition as a king. He was crowned in 1966 as King of the 300,000-strong Rwenzururu nation. However, the "King of the Mountains of the Moon" began as a teenage rebel fighting alongside his father in a war of secession against the neighboring nation of Toro. Mumbere inherited the kingship upon the death of his father but was confined to struggling in the wilderness until he obtained a government scholarship to study in the U.S. Later, Uganda shut off his cash flow and he had to leave school and begin working as a nurse's aide. He said he chose the profession because it promised steady work.

Now, after finally obtaining the blessing of the republican government, the King is back and was welcomed at a colorful celebration to marke his formal restoration to his ancestral throne. He was warned by the President to stick to cultural issues and to stay out of politics (yeah, because the politicians are doing such a great job on that front) but all is not peace and stability for the restored royal. At least four other men are claiming kingship over disputed areas of the Bakonzo-Bamba and have been trying (without success) to raise legal roadblocks to the restoration.

Monarchists are Mad in Uganda

The musical monarchist over at Royal World blog reports a story from the BBC about royalist riots in the east African nation of Uganda. The riots started in reaction to government efforts to keep the King Muwenda Mutebi III of the Buganda (the largest Ugandan ethnic group) from visiting a troubled region near Kampala. Uganda is a republic but in recent years has allowed the restoration of the four major tribal monarchies as cultural figures only -without political power. However, the monarchs, like King Muwenda Mutebi III, have displayed the strength of the royal position even without political power as the monarchs have used the traditional support they have from the public to hold the government accountable in upholding the laws of the country. Needless to say this has annoyed the political big-shots on a number of occasions.