Early reign In contrast to previous emperors, Dawit had only one wife,
Seble Wongel, whom he married around 1512–13. The couple had eight children: four sons and four daughters. Taking only one wife throughout his life was seen as a Christian act that fit with the ideals of the
Church. Although she was well into her seventies, the Empress Mother
Eleni stepped in to act as her step-great-grandson's
regent until 1516, when he came of age. During this time, she was aware that the neighboring
Muslim states were benefitting from the assistance of other, larger Muslim countries like the
Ottoman Empire. Eleni sought to neutralize this advantage by dispatching the
Armenian,
Mateus to Portugal to ask for assistance. However, the Portuguese response did not arrive in Ethiopia until much later, when an embassy led by Dom Rodrigo de Lima arrived at
Massawa on 9 April 1520. Traversing the
Ethiopian Highlands, they did not reach Dawit's camp until 19 October of that year.
Francisco Álvares provided a description of the Emperor: A follower of his late father, the monk Gebre Andrias slayed Emir
Mahfuz of
Adal in 1517, at the
Battle of Fatagar (1516). 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. 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." According to Ethiopian chronicles, two decades into Dawit's ascension, a young man by the name
Ahmed Ibrahim had rebelled against the
Adal leaders and spread terror in the region. Dawit sent his general Delghan into Adal to confront him however the Abyssinian army was defeated at the
Battle of Hubat by Ahmed's warriors.
Ethiopian–Adal War With the death of Sultan
Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad in 1520, a young general and imam,
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, consolidated his hold on the Adal Sultanate, making his candidate
Umar Din sultan. Shortly before this, the
Ottoman Empire had conquered
Mamluk Egypt and were looking to expand into the
Red Sea region. The Ethiopians had previously stolen firearms from the Mamluks during the reign of
Yeshaq I but had not put them to use. In the 1520s, Emperor Lebna Dengel bought two swivel-guns from the Portuguese, as well as fourteen muskets acquired from Turks, he was thus ill equipped for the Ottoman backed invasion in 1527 which included thousands of Turkish and Arab flintlocks and matchlocks. The Imam crossed the
Awash River and entered Fatagar in 1528, looting and burning the town of Badeqe before Dawit could arrive with his army. He began to withdraw, retreating across the Samara, a tributary of the Awash. 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. 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
Battle of Shimbra Kure, but failed to destroy the Imam's army. Arab Faqīh states that many
Somali on the left flank retreated from the battlefield, with the Ethiopians pursuing them and killing a large number of their men, but that the
Harla on the right flank managed to hold their ground. 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
Battle of Amba Sel on 27 October, where the Emperor was almost captured, a reversal, in the words of R.S. Whiteway, that left Lebna Dengel "never in a position to offer a pitched battle to his enemies." The Imam's followers poured into Bet Amhara, pillaging every church they found, including Mekane Selassie, Atronsa Maryam, Debre Nagwadgwad and Ganata Giyorgis. Emperor Dawit fell back behind the
Abay River to the relative security of
Gojjam. Only their failure to capture the royal compound at
Amba Geshen slowed the Muslims down. In April 1533, Ahmad once again assembled his troops at
Debre Berhan to conquer—or at least ravage—the northern regions of
Tigray,
Begemder, and
Gojjam. Both Ethiopia and Dawit suffered heavily from these assaults. The
Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion was destroyed, and the establishments on the islands of
Lake Tana looted. Dawit's eldest son Fiqtor was killed at Zara in
Wag by a lieutenant of Ahmad on 7 April 1537; another son,
Menas, was captured on 19 May 1539, and later sent to
Yemen.
Later life During the years he lived as an outlaw in his own realm constantly hounded by Imam Ahmed's soldiers the
Malassay, 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. 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. When Dawit was in
Dembiya, the
Malassay came and captured most his soldiers, and he was force to flee with a few loyal followers to the mountain of Tchelmefra in the country of
Simien. Dawit found refuge in this location but was once again pursued by the Malassay. Upon reaching the
Tekezé River, he successfully crossed it and reached Tabr. There, he succeeded in killing Ahmad al-Din, the Adalite governor of Tigray, who had been plundering churches. Shortly after, Dawit died of a sickness that befell him. 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. 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. == Notes ==