Tiruwork Wube

Empress Tiruwork Wube aka Queen Terunesh (died May 16, 1868) was an Empress consort of Ethiopia as the second spouse of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia.

She was the daughter of Dejazmatch Wube Hayle Maryam, the prince of Simien and virtual ruler of all of northern Ethiopia during the 1840s. Her mother was Woizero Lakiyaye, a Tigrayan noblewoman. Tiruwork Wube was a descendant of Wolde Selassie who ruled much of the region and established his capital at Chalacot in the late 1700s. The family of Dejazmatch Wube were descended from Emperor Fasilides, and the Dejazmatch had long harbored ambitions of becoming Emperor himself. However, Tewodros II defeated Wube, and had himself crowned at the church of Derasge Maryam that Wube is said to have built for his own planned coronation. Tewodros is said to have especially hated Dejazmach Wube among his enemies and ordered that he be chained and imprisoned for life along with his sons. A deeply religious woman, Tiruwork Wube endured her father's condition by resorting to prayer and fasting, and planned on entering a convent.

Following the death of Tewodros II's much loved first wife, Empress Tewabech Ali (who was Tiruwork's niece), his intimates began to discreetly look for an appropriate consort to provide him with an heir and to calm his more extreme moods as his late wife had done. Legend states that one of the Emperor's officers was attending Sunday services at a church at Derasge when Tewodros was staying there, and was struck at the beauty, the aristocratic deportment, and the deep piety of a woman worshiping there. He immediately went to the Emperor and told him he had seen the woman "meant to be the wife of my sovereign". Tewodros made inquiries, and learned that the woman was none other than the daughter of his enemy Wube Hayle Maryam. However, her royal bearing, her illustrious family tree, and great beauty impressed him sufficiently to want to marry the daughter of one of his greatest foes. Tiruwork Wube resisted, begging to be allowed to enter a convent, but her family prevailed upon her to marry the Emperor in hopes that the harsh imprisonment of her father and brothers might be ended, or at least eased. According to Hormuzd Rassam, she was 12 years old when they wed.

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